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Massive Attack's sophomore effort could never be as stunning as Blue Lines, and a slight drop in production and songwriting quality made the comparisons easy. Still, from the first two songs Protection sounds worthy of their debut. The opening title track is pure excellence, with melancholy keyboards, throbbing acid lines, and fragmented beats perfectly complementing the transcendent vocals of Tracey Thorn (an inspired choice to replace the departed Shara Nelson as their muse). Tricky, another soon-to-be-solo performer, makes his breakout on this record, with blunted performances on "Karmacoma," another highlight, as well as "Eurochild."

Protection pulls all the most accessible elements of Blue Lines, the atmosphere, the rhythms, the vocals, and streamlines them into a sleek ride under urban lights. It spawned 3 top 30 singles and the album debuted at number 4 on the charts, making good on the promise and potential of their game changing debut the second time around. While not as essential as their debut, I cannot comprehend what kind of music connoisseur wouldn’t love having this in their collection. It is as accessible and immediate as trip-hop gets. In order for it to achieve that accessibility a bit of the edge and tension of Blue Lines had to be sacrificed, luckily, those elements would make a comeback in a huge way on what came next.

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The title track from Massive Attack's second album, which arrived four years after their debut, Protection is a beautiful, mid-tempo song which places the band firmly in the middle of the trip-hop genre they created.

With the abrupt departure of Shara Nelson in the aftermath of Blue Lines, the band needed to regroup to discover their future path. Mushroom, 3D, and Daddy G knew they could never replace her, nor did they want to. Instead, they chose to bring a new diversity to their sound with the addition of rotating guest vocalists; the first was Everything but the Girl's Tracy Thorn.

It was Thorn who penned the song that gave the band their album title and first single, and her sweetly organic, jazz-inflected voice was perfectly suited to the quiet, pared-down music the band placed behind it. A haunting love song, Protection is a subtle counterpart to the earlier Safe From Harm and is proof that the band was still on the right track. — (via AllMusic)

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Label: Virgin
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, 180 Gram
Reissued: 2016 / Original: 1994
Genre: Electronic
Style: Downtempo, Dub, Trip Hop

File under: Electronic // Leftfield
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