Seven years after their last album, Massive Attack return to find a musical landscape very much touched by their influence. Following on from Portishead's sinisterly brilliant comeback last year, and the mutation of trip-hop to dubstep (indeed, the genre's brightest star, Burial, is to remix several tracks from Heligoland), all the signs are that Robert "3D" Del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall remain as vital as they've ever been.

For their first three albums, you could count on Massive Attack to make music that was as intense as it was graceful. As the moods of their albums gradually transitioned from refined soul to grimy abrasion on Blue Lines, Protection, and Mezzanine, they used that balance to toy with the emotional structure of their sound. The result was some of the decade's most haunting, forward-thinking music. Depending on how and when you listen, the same Massive Attack song can creep you out, fill you with sorrow, or send you into a deep reverie. The best ones do it all at once.