Massive Attack – False Flags (UNKLE remix) / United Snakes (Virgin / EMI)

Side A: False Flags (UNKLE Surrender Sounds Session #2) (8.11)
Side B: United Snakes (9.44)

A bit of an unusual release this one; in this case particularly because ‘False Flags’, the second single to be lifted from Massive Attack’s recent ‘Collected’ best-of is a track that’s unlikely to have been previously familiar to anyone who failed to pick up the 2 disc deluxe videos and outtakes edition of that particular release (purchasers picking up the standard one disc were instead lumped with a single previously unreleased track ‘Live With Me.’ Still, as the accompanying deluxe edition even contained a video for this track (featuring drastically slowed-down footage of what appears to be a violent political demonstration); it seems fair to say that Massive probably always planned its release as a single, in this case, considerably reworked by UNKLE with an eye toward the dancefloor, and accompanied by previously-unreleased B-side track ‘United Snakes’ (no prizes for guessing what that venomous title might be referring to).

In its original incarnation, ‘False Flags’ comes across as perhaps one of Massive’s comparatively more ‘difficult’ and less accessible moments of recent times, in that it’s far more stripped down and stark than its predecessor, the Terry Callier-voiced ‘Live With Me’, which in many senses seemed to hark back towards Massive’s comparatively lusher ‘Blue Lines’ soul-influenced period. While the original version comes across closer to a lament that anything else, with stark, ghostly minor piano keys rolling beneath 3D’s resigned, thin-sounding vocals as he intones menacing lines such as “The heroin’s cut / the fuse is lit”, UNKLE place a propulsive angular live bassline and thumping 4/4 house rhythms beneath the brooding keys, resulting in a rock-house crossover moment that comes across in a very similar fashion to a considerably more goth-centred re-reading of UNKLE’s recent ‘In A State’ single, particularly as Richard File’s delicate backing vocals begin to unfurl themselves around 3D’s grizzled Bristolian burr.

On the flip, ‘United Snakes’ offers up a densely enveloping moment that’s far more in line with much of Massive’s recent ‘100th Window’ album, sinister juddering electro synthlines building a sense of urgent tension beneath crashing martial drum rhythms and shimmering electronics as 3D’s trailing vocals get alternately dubbed-out and then pushed through stuttering digital processing; while there’s certainly a satisfying level of epic sweep generated by the doppler-effect synths, crashing breakdowns and brooding orchestral swells, in the end you’re left with a track that certainly conjures up some evocative atmosphere but that also comes across as slightly unfocused and certainly doesn’t reveal any significant clues about the direction Massive might follow on their upcoming fifth album. On the whole, a package that’s perhaps more designed with the Massive Attack completist in mind; while obsessives will no doubt race out and grab this, everyone else is advised to hunt down a 2 disc deluxe copy of ‘Collected.’