Massive Attack: Blue Lines
Ben Thompson, Observer Music Monthly, 20 June 2004
FROM THE METROPOLITAN angst of 'Safe from Harm' - "If you hurt what's mine, I'll sure as hell retaliate" - to the insistent shaken bottle-top rhythm of 'Unfinished Sympathy', the most striking thing about this album, 13 years on, is how urgent and dramatic it still sounds. The journey-time between "bold artistic breakthrough" and "widely accessible lifestyle accoutrement" has shortened considerably in the interim, but Massive Attack's universally admired debut has made that trip without forgetting where it came from.
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