After a few days of teasing, the legendary Bristol-based group releases a new militant single, “Boots On the Ground,” sung by Tom Waits, which is available everywhere except on Spotify, the platform Massive Attack has opposed for months.
It is the spring’s marquee meeting, anticipated since Massive Attack announced a discographic comeback planned for 2026 in the autumn prior. Quiet since the EP Eutopia (2020) and known for collaborations with some of the most illustrious names since their inaugural and seminal Blue Lines (1991), the Bristol duo marks its first collaboration with Tom Waits, the living legend of American music and a familiar face on the big screen. After several days of teasing on their social networks, Daddy G and 3D release the single Boots on the Ground, a track that speaks volumes about their unwavering militant mindset spanning four decades.
“It’s an honor, in a career, to collaborate with an artist of the scale, originality and integrity of Tom, but this track lands in a climate of chaos,” they explain in a press release. Across the western hemisphere, state authoritarianism and the militarization of police forces fuse again with neo-fascist policies. Whether in the context of American urgency, or seen through the eyes of citizens in Minneapolis or Tehran, this piece is threaded with movements of cold brutality and a sense of abandonment.”
The very first track in a series of upcoming releases
Instantly recognizable by his cavernous voice, Tom Waits declaims over fractured electronic beats a lyric against war, the Marines and firearms: “What can you use a marine for/This is a fucking machine-gun war”. He does not hesitate to praise the Bristol duo: “After having accepted an invitation from Massive Attack to collaborate many years ago, the long delay in release never worried me. Today, everything guarantees that this song will never go out of style. The madness and folly of man are a feast for the flies.”
Already available on streaming platforms (except Spotify, which the British collective has been fighting for months), the single Boots On the Ground will appear as a maxi on July 31 on Massive Attack’s label. Accompanied by a video clip directed by the American visual artist thefinaleye, this marks the very first track in a slate of releases planned in the coming months for the Daddy G and 3D duo.
EP Boots on the Ground (PIAS). Release on July 31. In concert at the Nuits de Fourvière in Lyon, June 10 and 11.
