Track Review: Massive Attack - "Splitting the Atom."

This is fun. I like new song reviews.

So it's been how many years since Massive Attack's 100th Window came out? Five? Six? Too many, that's how many. It was met with mixed reviews, never quite reaching the level of praise and worship as their third album, Mezzanine. Even still, these trip-hop masters have soldiered on and in 2006 released Collected, a two-disc a- and b-sides collection, featuring two new songs, "Live with Me" and "False Flags."

However, rumblings of a new album have been heard for years - in fact it was first thought that "Live with Me" and "False Flags" were the first two singles for this fifth release. After multiple delays, it seems the Heinz ketchup people were right and the best things do in fact come to those who wait.

Yesterday on Radio 1, Zane Lowe debuted "Splitting the Atom," from Massive Attack's upcoming EP, set for release this fall. "Atom" is a work of pure genius. The simple four-on-the-floor drumbeat alternates between a kick (or double-kick, depending on the bar) and a hand-clap and snare. Deeper swells rise from the abyss and spectral background vocals by Robert "3D" Del Naja accent the seething verses by Daddy G and smooth, if dismal, choruses by Horace Andy.

The real star of this show, however, is the keyboard. It sounds incredibly old, like old Dracula movie old, but it's heavy on the upbeat and almost dub-like. It lends so much texture and soul to "Splitting the Atom" it would be impossible without it. The song rocks for nearly six minutes, and rides a slow, unchanging groove like "Protection," though it slowly, gradually picks up the background instruments to impose on the earlier steady groove fiercely and in a way only Massive Attack can.

If this is on the EP (I think due Oct) that didn't quite make the full album (due Feb 2010), Massive Attack's 2010 release could be the best album of next year. Find "Splitting the Atom" online and stream or download it as soon as you can; it's one of the best songs I've heard this year.

For fans of Gorillaz, Portishead, Tricky.

Track Review: Radiohead - "These Are My Twisted Words."

England's arguably second biggest band, Radiohead, are most lately known for pioneering the "tip jar" method of paying for an .mp3 download of their latest LP, In Rainbows in October 2007. It's said to have been a great success, and not to be estranged of the ever-(d)evolving music distribution system brought on by high-speed internet and crumbling record labels, a brand new song by the quintet from Oxford eaked onto the internet a couple days ago, just a week following "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)," their stringy tribute to England's last surviving World War I veteran, who passed away very recently.

The first new Radiohead song in nigh on two years starts with a lurching final part of a guitar chord and slow, sexy drums...at least for about four seconds before the song kicks into its 120bpm+ groove.

Phil Selway's quick, riding high-hat-and-snare drumline will sound right at home to fans of "Twisted Words"'s closest comparable relative, 2007's "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi." If you're running in the morning, or driving along a forgiving highway on a warm, bright day, Phil has your mood captured and this track should be first on your iPod playlist. Lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood meanders between a handful of chords he picks a string at a time after some early strumming, leaving the listener with a feeling of anxiety and unease as his brother Colin plucks a fuzzy, jerky progression that complements the other instruments nicely. Sometimes it drives, sometimes it rides passenger, but it always stakes its claim in the production.

This bizarre jam plods along to varying emotive effect for over two and a half minutes before Thom Yorke gently broods "These are my twisted words" and a few other despondent, satirically-pedestrian lines that have become his trademark since 1995, with enough reverb backing them to make any indie fanboy happy.

"When are you coming back? I just can't handle it," Yorke shudders out as the brothers Greenwood back him with a steady tenacity, Selway's metronome percussion providing a welcome backbone to the new piece.

It ends as abruptly as it begins, without ever reaching a crescendo, a finale, a point, or whatever you're looking for. Much like their Amnesiac b-side "Cuttooth," "These Are my Twisted Words" manages to ride a pleasing, solid groove for over five minutes and leave you with the kind of satisfied feeling you'd expect after eating a modest dinner you've prepared yourself. It doesn't climax and explode like "How to Disappear Completely" or "Life in a Glasshouse," but one of the most intriguing things to me about 2007's In Rainbows (and this new track) was how simply enjoyable and pleasant the whole album was without Kid A's minimalism or OK Computer's utter portending apocalypse.

Nobody knows for sure what this song is leading up to, if anything. Radiohead have toyed at the idea of releasing three or four songs together physically and/or online as little EP releases lately in interviews, and it's been said that Thom Yorke will be contributing a song to the newTwilight movie, not to mention the cryptic message and August 17 release date mentioned in a .nfo file accompanying the leaked .mp3 that brought this song to the world, but I for one am thrilled to have it to listen to, sing along with and casually throw onto future mixtapes.

Grammar School (Lesson Two).

I feel good about combining two lessons of contraction/possessive mix-ups into one blog today, so let's do it.

Your is what we say when we imply that something belongs to you. "Now I wanna be your dog." This is one of the simplest words in the English language, and is in a singular AND plural third-person possessive pronoun form. You may ask me "Is this your blog?" or exclaim to my fiance and I, "We're looking forward to your wedding." Sadly, this latter form is giving way to the Midwestern "your guys's" and the Southern variation, "y'all's."

The other spelling, you're, is how we shorten you are. If we wish to say, "You're one to talk," it's never spelled your.

Other examples include "What is it you think you're doing?" and "Is this yours?"

"You're the worst boss I've ever had."

"I've kidnapped your Dunny and I demand the ransom."

"What are your thoughts on The Virgin Suicides?"

"You're the worst phone company I've ever seen."

The other jumbling is its vs. it's.

If you hadn't noticed the pattern of you're and they're, you may by now have guessed how the contraction of "it is" will play out. It's is used with an apostrophe only when shortening "it is" or "it has," and never when a genderless person or object owns something else. "It's gonna be a hot one today." "It's been a hard day's night."

On the other hand, if an inanimate or genderless object is in possession of something, the singular third-person possessive pronoun is its - WITHOUT an apostrophe. "Remember my blue shirt? Its third button fell off." "It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again."

"It's a joke. It's all a joke."

"That snowblower is on its last legs."

Grammar School (Lesson One).

I read my share of e-mails, blogs, letters, posted notices and the like, and just between us, the grammar in this country is beginning to resemble something cavemen would use, or pick out of their shower drain if, in fact, they'd discovered how to irrigate water or run pipeline.

So, while I'm researching new topics about which to write, I'm just going to trot along here and help the entirety of my readership function more aptly as communicative human beings. I think I'll just take grammatical errors I see in my everyday life and point out their errors, explain how they err, illustrate the proper method and correct it. It's my little part in helping the human race get a little smarter instead of a little dumber.

The first lesson is to learn how to differentiate between "there," "their" and "they're." It may sound easy to you, but you have no idea how many people confuse them.

There is an adverb (a word that describes an action) usually implying a destination away from oneself, among other things. For example, in its most common definition, one might say "I think the napalm is over there" or "There aren't enough bottles of whiskey in this town for the both of us."

It is ONLY used to describe a physical destination, even if a vague one. One never writes "This is there problem" or "There going to kill us all!"

Their is a pronoun (a word that describes a person, place or thing) implying multiple parties' ownership of an object. "Is this their zombie?" "Yes, this zombie belongs to both of them - it is theirs."

It is absolutely NOT used as a substitute when one wishes to avoid the effort of saying "his or her." For example, "Jonny Lupsha has just updated their Facebook status!" This is wrong. It's just...bloody...wrong. There aren't two of me, and if there were we surely wouldn't share a Facebook status, as one of me would be in playing video games and the other would be at work cursing losing that video game / work coin toss. So we instead say "Jonny Lupsha has just updated his or her Facebook status!' or "his/her Facebook status!" If you like, you can say "her or his," but I find "his or her" rolls off the tongue more fluidly.

Finally, they're. When spelled "they're," they're is a contraction (shortened word) meaning "they are." This is most commonly mistaken with their, and I cannot stress enough how important their separation is. "They're" means "they are," and "their" indicates what group of people something belongs to. One writes, "They're the worst '60s revivalist group I've ever heard!" or "I don't care what they're doing; get them off my horse!"

We never, EVER write "This is they're lightsaber," or "What's they're phone number?" Every time you mix "their" and "they're," your favorite messiah cries.

More to come with every grievance I feel like filing.