MASSIVE ATTACK

Virgin

You could reasonably argue that instead of releasing a Greatest Hits album, Massive Attack should just have re-released Blue Lines instead. On that era-defining work, they skilfully merged the Wild Bunch soundsystem with a series of inspired guest vocalists. They called it trip-hop, which is putatively an abbreviation of tranquillised hip-hop. In Massive Attack's case, it meant a beguiling mixture of slo-mo beats ("like hip-hop being played under water", as it was once memorably described) and deftly arranged raps.

It's an egregious mistake that the band haven't included one of Blue Lines' best moments here - namely The Hymn of the Big Wheel, with that stunning Horace Andy vocal. That aside, this is a mightily impressive collection. While the band could never outdo Blue Lines (the follow up, Protection, was relatively weak) they did claw their way back with Mezzanine. You get the standout tracks from all these albums (plus 100th Window) over the first disc. The second disc contains rarities, B-sides and one new song, while on the flipside you'll find a selection of videos in DVD form. Always masters of the musical video form (remember what they did for the glorious Unfinished Sympathy, a treatment later to be ripped off by The Verve for Bittersweet Symphony), there are some real gems here.

The band are currently in the studio working on a new album, Weather Underground (due next year), but there's enough on here to remind us how and why they were once the most important British band of their generation. Brian Boyd