Massive Attack Make Middling Comeback

I know it's not a good idea to get wound up about shows, but sometimes it can't be helped. I love Massive Attack. From Jonathan Glazer's Shining homage video for "Karma Coma," I was hooked. They were moody assholes, best exemplified by their hilariously awful Mezzanine interview on MuchMusic with Sook-Yin Lee, where they nearly made her cry on-air, but they made some of the most innovative music of the mid-to-late '90s. Because they're so moody, though, they rarely tour. Until this spring, Massive Attack hadn't hit these shores since Mezzanine was released, forgoing North American touring after the 2003 release of the lacklustre 100th Window.

This year's best of, Collected, marked renewed interest in the duo, who were a trio when they did their best work — third member Andrew Vowles left notorious control freak Robert Del Naja and Grant Marshall behind shortly after the release of Mezzanine. But Massive Attack are more famous because of who they've lured into the studio than they are for their actual musical prowess. And their first Toronto appearance in just under a decade yielded a lineup that dropped jaws.

If you want to make a statement, however, you could do a lot better than B-side "False Flags." The Del Naja slow burner kicked off the 100-minute set and was a scary precursor for what lay ahead. The problem lay in the sound. The mix was murky enough to begin with. And as if it wasn't bad enough that you could barely hear the velvet-voiced singer above the booming bass, the volume was barely above the minimum level. Only a few of these problems would be rectified.

Thankfully, most of these issues didn't matter to the sold-out crowd at the Carlu. The big surprise of the night was the appearance of Marshall, who had been absent early in the tour because his wife had just given birth. The band turned up the volume, and Del Naja and Marshall took control of the proceedings with Mezzanine's "Rising Son." Late in the track, Marshall tackled the keyboards to give the ending of the song a vicious flourish.

Next up was a woman who resembled an English nanny, ex-Cocteau Twin Liz Fraser. Del Naja introduced her as having "the voice of an angel," and she put it to good use on the B-side version of "Black Milk." That song was the first showcase for guitarist Angelo Bruschini, a legend in his own right for his work with Massive.

With the revolving door still moving, off went Fraser and on came dreaded reggae icon Horace Andy. On cue, the band took the new wave "Man Next Door" and turned it into a full-on reggaeton track. That, unfortunately, sucked some menace out of the song, which is one of the band's best. That didn't completely detract from Andy, who, if he had been any cooler, would have frozen in the stellar lights being blasted from a series of rails at the back of the stage.

As the show wore on, small problems in the music began to reveal themselves. First and foremost, with so much talent already in the building, why bother taking on "Karma Coma" without Tricky around? Del Naja should have known better. Second, the touring band have clearly worked hard to recreate Massive Attack's highly electronic sound with minimal help from the samples that drove the original songs. But in doing that, they've also drained the music of what made it so great in the first place. Sure, there's not much differentiation on the surface of the verses or choruses of the songs, but all of them are infused with little bits of production that elevate the tension with every passing minute. Because the band failed to realize this, the verses in "Angel" and "Teardrop" — other high points in the band's catalogue — sounded basically the same.

Still, there were too many moments that saved the night from being a disaster. Deborah Miller's turns on "Unfinished Symphony" and main set closer "Safe From Harm" were show-stoppers, particularly the former. Bruschini's work on "Inertia Creeps" and "Future Proof" helped Del Naja raise his whisper to an audible level. And every Marshall appearance on stage was heartening to any longtime fan worried that Massive Attack have been entirely consumed by Del Naja's legendary ego. The frontman was, for his part, incredibly animated, dancing around the stage when he wasn't singing and moving comfortably when he was. It was a performance far from the disconnected blank slate his vocals often evoke.

By the time Del Naja and Fraser pounded out "Group Four" during the encore, you'd seen pretty much every side of Massive Attack. Their career-spanning comeback performance was much like their career itself, brilliant in some places, frustrating in others. Hopefully, a 2007 new release will push their stage prowess to greater heights — if they decide to get back onstage in this lifetime.