Massive Attack is a British underground group who achieved great success in with their first few forays into music. "Blue Lines" is their best effort yet.
The album is a mixture of soft rap and hip-hop music, in a very relaxed format. Most of the songs are smooth and long, but that is one of the drawbacks. On most of the songs, the vocals get lost in an attempt to be hypnotic and the music is quite undecided. Nevertheless, there are a few decent numbers. The title song is quite good as is the opening number on Side A. Apart from that, there are few numbers which rise above the average. However, guest vocalist Shara Nelson sounds quite good on "Haze", as also on a couple of other numbers that she performs on.
The album is average but is of interest because of its experimental sound. However, there is a feeling of incompleteness at the end of the album, which makes one wonder as to how good the band could really be.
This article was first published on31 Oct 2000.