Massive Attack

On their sophomore effort, Massive Attack display a wide range of Trip-Hop styles, ranging from cinematic instrumentals such as "Heat Miser" to seductive grooves like "Karmacoma" (featuring Tricky). The title track and "Better Things" are this LP's true gems, thanks to vocalist Tracy Thorn from Everything But The Girl.

Even with the departure of the smoky-voiced Shara Nelson, this English dance-pop outfit
still delivers brilliant body music that doesn't neglect the brain. Cool, sexy stuff, it smoothly
fuses dub, club and soul, grounding its grace in sampled hip-hop beats. With four vocalists
on board – Everything but the Girl's Tracey Thorn, reggaeman Horace Andy, Nigerian-born
Nicolette and rapper Tricky – Protection lacks the focus of the masterful 1991 d... More >

Trip hop without pain or mess, thick-textured and clean-etched, doing a solid for vocalists in need (they return Tracey Thorn's favor with interest, including an introduction to unknown-but-equal Nicolette) and stretching instrumentals into a weird comfort zone (e.g. the almost literally atmospheric "Weather Storm," which I assume was a little too unusual for the funk-lite hedonists in producer Nellee Hooper's own band). Definitive: "Karmacoma," a title that would say everything you need know about the killing pleasures of killer weed if Tricky's stoned vocal didn't say so much more. (Grade - A-)