Some UFO's I Didn't See.

The first house we rented on Maui was at the end of a long, shared alley (or driveway, depending on how you look at it). There were three or four houses whose garages faced it and had little 5- or 10-foot driveways, and it was several hundred yards long leading to the cul-de-sac. Often I found myself staring up at the stars – there were no skyscrapers and few cars, so every night was good for stargazing – and it was on one of these occasions I didn’t see a flying saucer.

I caught it out of the corner of my eye. It was a tiny flaming dot traversing the night sky, and just as I opened my mouth to say “Hey, shooting star!” it reversed direction and flew back the way it came. It wasn’t a straight reversal though; it was a hairpin on a dime. The next day I asked an astronomy teacher at my brother’s high school what could cause that.

“Well, if it were a meteor breaking up it would’ve split up in two,” he said.

“Right.”

“…and there would’ve been trails, probably not a dot. If it hit something like another meteor or a satellite and ricocheted off, it would’ve slowed down a great deal. I mean, even hitting it head-on, and going almost straight backwards, it would still slow down a lot.”

“Is that physics?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Cool. Is that astrophysics?”

“Ehhhhhh, kind of. If you’re interested in physics, you should talk to one of the physics teachers here. Mr. Imada is – “

“So what object could just zip around and fly back like that?”

“I don’t know, jonny; are you telling me you think you saw a UFO?”

“Well, I didn’t see anything but that flaming dot. It could’ve been an airplane, or spaceship, satellite or meteor…I really didn’t see anything solid.”

“Still strange,” he concluded.

He never suggested a UFO, but it still didn’t sit well with me. It wasn’t until years later, after I’d moved to Georgia, then Virginia, I saw a tv special on UFO’s seen in space. Over satellite footage of a meteor colliding with another and reducing its speed (dramatically) and course (not so dramatically) from the impact, the narrator claimed that no known vehicle could change course so radically and suddenly and continue at such high speed, though several such sightings had been reported.

Coincidentally, it was less than a year after I saw that special I didn’t see another UFO. In fact, I didn’t see a whole fleet of them, in the sky, in broad daylight. I was working in a mall when it happened. I was an assistant manager at this store near Richmond, and it was right next to the main entrance to the building. I was running a Friday evening shift with two or three associates. As they walked the aisles, helping the customers, I was ringing at the register and doling out breaks.

I helped this middle-aged couple buy something for their kids and I got back to my shift. About a half hour later, they came jog-walking back in – the husband started talking to me when they were still in the hall.

“Well, Jesus, I can’t believe it.”

“What’s up, guys?”

“About eight or ten UFO’s out there, probably a dozen people just saw it.”

I vaulted over the counter and ran outside, leaving my keys with one of my associates. I hadn’t gotten a close-enough look at my strange object over Maui skies so I was determined. Of course by the time I got there, I’d missed them. The people outside were in a panic and talking to one another, or to 911.

“Maybe almost a dozen of them in a V formation…”

“…just floated right towards the mall and overhead…”

“…they almost stopped, then they zipped off so fast they broke the god-damn sound barrier did you hear that boom? That’s what it was.”

“Can I have a cigarette?”

“Sure thing, ma’am; way I see it they might be the last ones we ever get to smoke.”

“I was in the Air Force for 27 years and I never saw anything that could maneuver like that.”

“I didn’t see them at first, then someone pointed and said ‘Holy shit!’ and I turned my head and my God. Just…my God.”

I went back inside. The couple was stricken. They were white as sheets. They had this look on their faces and I recognized it immediately. It was the same as the look on the other students’ faces as we all watched in horror at the live feeds coming from Columbine High School or the World Trade Center. It was the look on everyone else’s faces outside that day. It was the look of finding out you’ve been tricked – swindled out of everything. It was the terror and certainty of finding out everything you thought was safe and normal in the world couldn’t be further from the truth.

Mall security came by about five minutes later to ask questions, but they knew there was nothing they could ask. They seemed even more scared than the witnesses. Everything was fine, they said. The police have been notified and there was nothing to worry about. I didn’t know if they were trying to convince the shoppers or themselves, but I don’t think either was particularly effective.

By the end of the night things had settled down back to normal, as things have a tendency to do. Anyone who claimed to see the UFO’s or had heard about them that day shopped and left, and the panic and facial expressions faded to an ordinary value. We locked up at 9pm and talked about it while we cleaned.

“If I didn’t see it myself…”

“It was probably just some airplanes or something.”

“You never hear about a bunch of people seeing UFO’s in the middle of the day, let alone in the suburbs,” someone else added. “It’s always in the country, so they can abduct big overall-wearing Billy Ray and give him an anal probe.”

We dropped the cash deposit at the ATM and headed out to our cars, and between the front door and our driver’s seats, we all watched the sky and walked just a bit more quickly than we usually did.

jonny Lupsha Cookbook, Entry One - Open-Face Breakfast BLT

Ingredients -

- 2 slices potato bread
- 2 leaves iceberg lettuce
- 1 slice prosciutto
- 2 eggs
- 2 slices American cheese
- 4 grape tomatoes
- 1/4 cup white wine

Prep at least a half-hour early by dicing the tomatoes and putting them in a small cup or china bowl with the white wine, then place in fridge.

Pre-heat your oven to 375 and lay out the prosciutto on a baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes while the rest of the ingredients cook.

Melt a tab of butter in a medium or large pan - just enough to coat the pan - and fry two eggs on medium-low heat. When they're just about done, toast the bread and put a slice of American on each egg in the pan. Once melted, remove from pan.

Place the toasted potato bread on the serving plate, then tear two leaves of lettuce and place one on each slice of bread. By now the prosciutto should be just about done, so lay one slice of prosciutto on each sandwich, followed by one egg/cheese on each, then a spoonful of the tomatoes marinated in wine on each. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Chiefing.

Since my high school days, one political agenda has ruled the hearts and minds of young America: whether or not to legalize it.

The best reason I've heard of why the government hasn't legalized smoking, growing, buying and selling weed is because it's too easy to grow on a personal level, and thus too hard to tax. Considering the amount of senators and presidents who have been rumored or proved to have debilitating drug habits, it's hard to perpetuate the "drugs are killing the country" argument they advertise on their campaign commercials.

If there's a real reason not to legalize marijuana, it's to prevent potheads from having anything else to brag about. I can't tell you the dread I feel when someone comes up to me and says "Hey...do you smoke weed?"

*Sigh* "No."

And then whoever this random person is suddenly turns into Ralph Nader with all the grit and none of the nobility of Harvey Milk.

"Why? You do realize it's good for you, right? I mean it is the best medicine for Glaucoma. You do know that don't you? Why wouldn't you do something that's good for you?"

Furthermore, the increasing legality of medicinal marijuana, pot clubs and so on seem to be paving the way for an eventual full legalization of pot. So, as I so often do, I'm going to offer my opinion on this.

If marijuana possession, use and distribution is legalized, the right to smoke should come with a license, like a driver's license. To earn your license to smoke, you have to log 500 hours sober as monitored by a state official (like a driving instructor), hanging out with potheads.

Stoners only have three conversations, as far as I've ever noticed. The first goes like this.

"Hey, do you ever wonder if like...the world around us isn't really like...real? Whoa."

"Yeah bud, I saw The Matrix too. Very cute."

"Naw, man, not like that...just like...as far as things being real. Y'know?"

"No."

"Whatever, man, you need to learn to think outside the box."

Sometimes your friendly neighborhood pot-smoker will switch from a neo-existentialism to a more Lovecraftian doubt of perception, and taser you with this type of discussion.

"Hey man, do you ever wonder if, like, the colors we see aren't really all the colors? Like, there are more out there we don't know about yet?"

"No. All visible colors in the spectrum have been tested and found, hundreds of years ago probably."

"No man, I mean like...besides those."

And the worst, the teeth-grinding horrible talk...

"Dude...you can't tell me I'm not a hippie."

"Um...ok."

"But also...that doesn't mean I am one."

"...good for you?"

"Yo...just because like the hippies smoked a lot of weed and loved trees and protested the government, and I do too, doesn't mean I'm a hippie."

"I never said you were."

"But you can't even identify me, because just because I'm not wearing sandals and tie-dye doesn't mean I'm not a hippie. You just need to let go of your labels, man."

So if you can deal with 500 hours of this, while sober, and it can be proven in a court of law that you've done so, by all means, light up that bong, brother. Hell, have a cop light it for you, because God knows you've earned it.

Plastic Beach.

1. Orchestral Intro - 1m09s

2. Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach - 3m35s

3. White Flag - 3m43s

4. Rhinestone Eyes - 3m20s

5. Stylo - 4m30s

6. Superfast Jellyfish - 2m54s

7. Empire Ants - 4m43s

8. Glitter Freeze - 4m03s

9. Some Kind of Nature - 2m59s

10. On Melancholy Hill - 3m53s

11. Broken - 3m17s

12. Sweepstakes - 5m20s

13. Plastic Beach - 3m47s

14. To Binge - 3m55s

15. Cloud of Unknowing - 3m06s

16. Pirate Jet - 2m32s

In 2000, Blur frontman Damon Albarn and comic book artist extraordinaire Jamie Hewlett unleashed their virtual pop band Gorillaz to a world that had no idea how to react. Their music has been described as zombie hip-hop, neo-pop, dark trip-hop and everything else under the sun. Producer Dan the Automator helped put together a 17-track debut album for cartoon characters 2-D (vox), Murdoc (bass), Russel (drums and percussion) and Noodle (guitar) to flaunt on a world tour.

Even more overwhelming than the idea of making four cartoon characters play extensive live shows - or their original backstory, which included Noodle FedEx'ing herself to the band, Russel being possessed by the spirits of his dead best friend and so on - was a seemingly endless list of guest stars, collaborators and contributors to their music. By the end of Gorillaz' self-titled first album, the audience has heard from Kid Koala, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Miho Hatori and Ibrahim Ferrer. Not a bad start for four animated musicians' lives together, which were first spent (according to their videos) running from demons and trying to missile enormous moose on the highway.

Five years later, Damon and Jamie traded in Dan the Automator in favor of Danger Mouse to produce their follow-up Demon Days. Danger Mouse caught Gorillaz' attention by mashing up a cappella tracks from Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles' White Album and uploading them for free to the internet after receiving cease-and-desist orders from both groups' copyright holders. With Danger on board, Gorillaz began to close the gap on their lives after the initial seduction of fame.

After Russel exorcised his friend Del's spirit, Noodle learned a bit more English and Murdoc continued to beat the shit out of 2-D at every opportunity, the band was "destroyed by their own fame," according to a booklet handed out at a CD signing I attended with Damon, Jamie and Danger. This is evidenced most clearly in the band's lead single for Demon Days, "Feel Good Inc." In it, the band are seen practically forced to stay up with no sleep to play shows for posh hosts surrounded by passed-out partygoers.

If the guest list on Gorillaz was merely eclectic, the contributors for Demon Days seemed outright baffling. De La Soul, Neneh Cherry, Ike Turner, MF Doom, Shaun Ryder, Martina Topley-Bird, Roots Manuva, Booty Brown of Pharcyde, the London Community Gospel Choir and a spoken word piece by Dennis Hopper. Musically, it bent and Frankensteined genres left and right. "Last Living Souls" contained a Britpop verse, an acoustic-and-piano ballad breakdown and a dub finish. Second single "Dirty Harry" started as trip-hop, went completely classical (violins and all) for a bit before slamming into '90s-style rap. Borrowing samples from the original score for 1978's Dawn of the Dead and Salt n Pepa, it was an album that sounded all over the place yet, by the end, managed to come together in some strange cohesion that maybe only its songwriters truly understood.

Then, just as slowly as Gorillaz returned like zombies to the music scene, they faded away. Damon Albarn worked with Danger Mouse on The Good, the Bad and the Queen in 2007, put together an epic traditional Japanese play titled Monkey: Journey to the West a year or so after and even reunited Blur for a brief stint. Jamie did an incredible amount of artwork and set design for Monkey and kept busy and Danger Mouse also produced DangerDoom with MF Doom and Beck's Modern Guilt, co-founded Gnarls Barkley and worked with David Lynch on Dark Night of the Soul.

In the last month or two, leading up to the release of Plastic Beach, enough buzz and rumor has surrounded it as any album in the last 20 years. Murdoc, our only connection to the rest of the band, started a Twitter and tore down gorillaz.com. It slowly came about that he'd taken over an island of humanity's washed-up detritus, debris and garbage and set up camp there. The entirety of Plastic Beach, save a few guest spots, was recorded there. 2-D has been kidnapped and brought to the island and forced - at gunpoint - to record his vocals. Noodle was crushed by a lighting fixture after Gorillaz last show - 2-D's crazy ex-girlfriend was suspected, as was Murdoc's father - and Murdoc built an android replica of her using her DNA. This Noodle v2.0 (or TermiNoodle, as I like to call her) is allegedly evil and a bit of a slave to Murdoc. The video for their first new single, "Stylo," shows her get shot in the head at one point and just sort of break after having a full robot seizure.

And Russel is nowhere to be seen, on the album or elsewhere. "I had to record all the drums myself," Murdoc said in a broadcast recently. Then, however, amidst two dozen short teaser videos for Plastic Beach, the band members were featured individually in short videos. Murdoc was shot at by pirates, 2-D was gassed and brought to the island, and an angry Russel stormed down a dock past two elderly fishermen and dove into the water, presumably headed to meet the band.

For this third album, Damon took on the role of producer himself, and managed to roust a talent roster to outdo the first two. Three symphonic orchestras, Snoop Dogg, indie Brit rappers Kano and Bashy, synthpop act Little Dragon, Mos Def, "Across 110th Street" singer Bobby Womack (in his first recorded performance in 20 years, no less), Lou Reed, De La Soul, Gruff Rhys, Mark E. Smith, The Clash's guitar/bass duo Mick Jones and Paul Simonon and (on an as-yet-unheard track) The Horrors all work alongside a hostage 2-D, intimidating mastermind Murdoc and the underused guitar of Android Noodle.

On paper, it seems as though the boys behind Gorillaz have finally gone too far. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to hear the final version of Plastic Beach and am happy to put those fears to rest.

I had the distinct feeling from their debut that Gorillaz were interested in making three to five songs of three different genres each - songs like "Dracula," "Slow Country" and "Starshine" are very dub-centric, as "Clint Eastwood" and "Rock the House" are straight hip-hop. Plastic Beach follows a similar trend, if not as cut-and-dry - there are rap-heavy tunes; 2-D-based electro-pop or trip-hop tracks; and experimental guest star showcases.

For an album that starts almost identically to Demon Days, - a minute-long string-based intro track - Plastic Beach veers in such a radically different direction after its first 60 seconds it could make your head spin. To make its hip-hop mark, Snoop Dogg and a big brass section dominate "Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach," and are immediately followed by "White Flag," which is like dropping Dizzee Rascal into the middle of a Disney score.

All the rap tracks are actually right in the beginning of the album, unless you count the experimental "Sweepstakes" with Mos Def. Lead single "Stylo" features Mos Def spitting rhymes at its beginning and end, bookending amazing vocals by 2-D and Bobby Womack. "Stylo" is followed immediately by De La Soul's triumphant Gorillaz return "Superfast Jellyfish," which is as catchy and light as their contribution to Handsome Boy Modeling School's White People. "Superfast Jellyfish" is meant to be a commercial for a future breakfast food, says Damon - er, Murdoc...or was it Damon? Ah, hell, you get the point.

In between "White Flag" and "Stylo" near the beginning - and continuing to dominate the record after "Superfast Jellyfish" - is Gorillaz' 2nd style of track on Plastic Beach - 2-D at the helm of some of the lightest and most heartfelt songs he's ever sung. "Rhinestone Eyes" opens with an unassuming synthpop beat and quiet background acoustic guitar by evil Noodle, but later explodes as phat and toe-tapping as anything we've heard from the group. Likewise is "Broken," which rightly relies on a SoCal rap beat and 2-D's soulful, melancholy vocals to paint a picture of twilight and loss. 2-D's duets with Little Dragon singer Yukimi Nagano, "Empire Ants" and "To Binge," are already fan favorites and the album's only been streaming online for 48 hours.

Finally, Plastic Beach's oddities. "Sweepstakes," again featuring Mos Def, is a monotone attack on assimilation and bribery by anybody who wins a crowd over by making them feel like a winner, albeit of cheap plastic crap. It sounds like it would be at home on a latter-day Tricky album or as a Black Star b-side, but complements the remainder of the album well, much like their self-titled album had "Punk" and Demon Days's title track, which seemed bright and optimistic next to the darkness of other tracks. "Cloud of Unknowing" is the exact opposite Bobby Womack than what we heard on "Stylo" - where he was desperate, passionate and full of fury on "Stylo," here Womack sounds cautiously optimistic, melancholy and uncertain but unable to succumb to as such. "Some Kind of Nature" serves as a strange neo-pop duet between 2-D and Lou Reed, who has significantly calmed - but not cooled - since his experimentation on Metal Machine Music and Transformer.

There is too much fascinating music on Plastic Beach to describe here. The crashing stomp of "Glitter Freeze" that reminds one of Demon Days's "Every Planet we Reach is Dead," the early-'80s electro perfection of "Stylo," the old-school pop and funk of "Plastic Beach" - it's all phenomenal. Even album closer "Pirate Jet," which sounds at first like a cross between walking the plank and the score for A Clockwork Orange, soon takes on a near-political satirist comment with lyrics like "It's all good news now because we left the taps running for a hundred years."

I'm not sure Plastic Beach will sell as well as the rest of the Gorillaz catalog - their previous two albums have sold a combined 12 million units - but it demands hearing. Having listened to it and digested it a half-dozen times now, I find myself entreating you with the first thing I ever said to convince myself about it: "It has Snoop Dogg and Lou Reed on it, for Christ's sake!"

Plastic Beach is released March 3 in Japan, March 5 in Australia, March 8 in the UK and March 9 in USA.

Prototypes for Steve.

So, in light of the recent revelation of the iPad to accompany the iPod and iPhone, I've been working on a few other product ideas the Apple folks might want to consider for their 2011 line. And before you accuse me of plagiarism, as I've no doubt people much cleverer than I have come up with this idea already, I'd like you to take it on faith that I have not Googled any of these and, as far as I know, I've conjured them entirely independently.

iPoe - Now, instead of buying an entire poem by infamous English writer Edgar Allen Poe, you can purchase and download selected lines from his most famous works without all the hassle of reading for more than a few seconds at a time. It's the same idea as how the iPod works with iTunes, only this would be for your iPad. Mmm, I can see the menus now... "Once Upon - Buy $0.99; As I Pondered - Buy $0.99," etc. I think it works well. Since songs are meant to be part of a cohesive project - the album - so too can couplets be orphaned from their parent work.

The INS iPid - This could be marketed specifically at the United States Immigration bureau like a little handheld database for identifying legal and illegal aliens. It would be like an iPod Touch but instead of scrolling through albums and song titles, the officer could scroll through names with photo ID's to compare whoever they're in front of with a Social Security Number, current US Passport information, etc. Should I take a bribe of $100 not to bring someone in who may or may not be a fully-documented legal citizen of the US? Yeah, there's an app for that.

iPoo - If it's one thing I've learned from celebrity news shows and TMZ, it's that Tom Cruise's baby's meconium is of vital importance to me, as was the time the girl on Flavor of Love got drunk and shat upon Flava Flav's carpet. Now with iPoo, I can keep track of celebrities' fecal matter in real-time like the Texts From Last Night iPhone app. Thanks, iPoo; I knew you'd take notice that Gwyneth Paltrow's baby's name is Apple.

iPud - You know how it looks when you're sitting at a table with your hands on your lap and texting? I think this joke has gone on long enough.

iPog - Ok, now this one is really genius. Apple's version of Pogs will run more cheaply and better than Microsoft's...but they only work with 10% of the available Pog surfaces out there. :(

iPot - So for 99 cents, you can take a monster-sized rip off a bong at one of Apple's patented Genius Bars, or $1.29 if you want to shotgun that hit to a friend. Apple's customer service reps will be available to teach you how to take your finger off the carb during normal business hours.

iPedo - I really do understand the recent efforts to have convicted sex offenders listed on local governments' websites and where they live so you can protect your kids from them. But when Justin Long endorses it and it becomes an iPhone app, it gets all light-hearted and cute and fun...just like the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies...which is also where you can find pedophiles.

Gorillaz - "Stylo."

Gorillaz brand new single, "Stylo," should be on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio show Monday night (thanks to gorillaz-unofficial for that info!), but in the meantime it appears the radio edit version has leaked from its promo cd. I wonder if this is related to its recent removal from an eBay auction?

"Stylo" is chock full of early electro-dance goodness. The bass synth and drum machine work perfectly together, as do the 2nd-verse-on windy keyboards and looped fx that remind me of the end of Chemical Brothers' "Buzz Tracks." 2-D enters with several layers of vocals for the pre-verse, and the verse is a romantic '80s ballad with near-muted megaphone back-up.

Bobby Womack rocks the chorus with all the passion one would expect from Terry Callier, and after the 2nd chorus, Mos Def wanders on-set to provide a smooth-as-always, if understated, verse of lyricism like only he can produce.

If "Stylo" or the new teaser trailers at gorillaz.com (loads of 16-bit wonder and ominous orchestral bits) are any indication of the sound of Plastic Beach, we're in for a hell of a Phase Three in the Gorillaz project.

Heligoland.

1. pray for rain

2. babel

3. splitting the atom

4. girl i love you

5. psyche

6. flat of the blade

7. paradise circus

8. rush minute

9. saturday come slow

10. atlas air

Seven years after Massive Attack released their fourth album, 100th Window, its follow-up,Heligoland is about to be released on Feb. 8 in the UK, and the following day here in The States.

Clocking in at far under an hour across 10 tracks, Heligoland is both concise and different. Featuring guest vocals by Tunde Adebimpe, Martina Topley-Bird, Guy Garvey, Damon Albarn, Hope Sandoval and long-time MA collaborator Horace Andy, this guest-star list may only be topped by Gorillaz' third album, Plastic Beach, due March 8.

Sounding about 75% more organic than 100th Window, Heligoland is full of handclaps; smooth, mostly-untreated vocals; acoustic guitar; beautiful, clear drums; and, at one point, a full horn section. Of course MA's signature synths, delay pedals, reverberated seething vocals by 3D and crunchy drum machines make triumphant returns as well.

Rolling drums and moody noir piano set the tone in "Pray for Rain" even before TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe croons prophetic about aftermath, decay, and that which once was. A bizarre turn of events brings "Rain" from Sam Spade to a near-Gospel bridge of joyous singing and brighter tones before returning to its brooding glory. At first listen I didn't care for the change-up, but once you've given it a few chances, I decided it serves only to lift us up to the heavens before dragging us down to the gutter.

"Babel," sung by Tricky ex-wife and collaborator Martina Topley-Bird, opens with raging crunchbeats, lingering keyboards and muted plucked bass strings before Martina takes over. Any concern over how crowded by the instruments she sounds is set aside by its chorus, at which point more warm electronics rise up and accompany her perfectly.

I reviewed "Splitting the Atom" when I first heard an extended cut of it several months ago. All you need to know is it locks onto a jaw-dropping cool drumbeat and keyboard line and rides it in the entire song, through verses and choruses. 3D's vocals haunt in the background throughout Daddy G's verses and Horace Andy's always smooth choruses, which have just a bit of tremolo accenting. 3D finally takes center stage in the post-chorus/pre-verse, a tinny poltergeist echoing a select few of G's lyrics, and returns near the end for a verse of his own.

"Girl I Love You." If you hear this and don't buy this album, you should have to wear a t-shirt saying as much so I know who to kick in the crotch. The throbbing bass and weird, echoing guitars supplement Horace Andy's pitch-perfect lyrics about love and loss until the even weirder horns kick in between verses and at the end, carrying "Girl" to impossible heights. The crescendo at the end of the 2nd verse is the single highest point of this album, which is a difficult target to hit.

Martina sings again on "Psyche," amidst looped acoustic guitar string plucks and clean electronic percussion. This is a really different side of Massive Attack, though it showcases their ability to take fast-paced, deliberate electronica and seamlessly weave lovely, gliding vocals over it, a trademark of theirs for years.

Elbow's Guy Garvey sings on "Flat of the Blade," and the music behind him is chock full of distorted skittering beats and warbly synthesizers. It sounds like the stuff of bad dream sequences in movies or Aphex Twin ambient collections, at least until the brass section lurches out of the shadows, but comes together in an odd sort of pleasing way. As much as I hate comparisons, I can't help but think of the first couple times I heard "Kid A," Radiohead's title track from their 2000 LP. So, so strange, but altogether lovely.

"Paradise Circus" was semi-debuted to the world with an...interesting video on massiveattack.com a few weeks ago. Hope Sandoval sounds incredibly effortless and soft, arriving at a sobering-up, late-night catharsis about love and sin amidst piano, xylophone, and one of Massive Attack's catchiest drumbeats since "Five Man Army," which soon gives way to an entirely organic drumset-and-bass 2nd verse and back again. After a quieted 3rd verse and false ending, "Circus" settles into its original groove and adds tragic strings before ending.

I think I need more time to listen to "Rush Minute," 3D's only solo vocal effort besides "Atlas Air." I love its steady early-'90s drum machine mixed with drumstick taps and computer mouse clicks, but so far it's popped out less to me than some of the other tracks. The guitar and bass repeat very four-on-the-floor patterns through each chorus, but there's a beautiful, desperate honesty in the piano, the kind most bands with a set of ivory keys would give their soul for in a moment. Undoubtedly a very good song, it doesn't strike me as having the greatness that "Girl I Love You" and "Splitting the Atom" have in spades.

Damon Albarn graces Heligoland with his vocals on "Saturday Come Slow," and he steals the show. "Saturday" could almost be on the next Gorillaz album, as it makes use of his oft-used quaint-and-quirky production, subdued drums and seemingly-perfect random acoustic guitar. Very pretty, but it feels a bit short.

Finally, the closer, "Atlas Air." The organ loop is brilliant and catchy, and 3D's vocals return with a vengeance. "It took all the man in me to be the dog you wanted me to be," he hisses, and I know exactly where he's coming from. Clocking in at nearly eight minutes, over a half-dozen instruments enter and drop out at practically random times throughout - and again, it all sounds so purposeful and never at all unwise or jarring. Nearly six minutes in, a furious synthesizer kicks in to carry us to the end of the album.

Man, what an album. Like a lot of my favorite bands with album releases in the last couple years, Massive Attack have churned out a set of songs that has a comfortable familiarity with SOME of my favorite elements of their work but approaches them from a very different angle, or vice versa. While it won't uproot MA's fanbase majority who declare Mezzanine their best album, it definitely has a lot of great, memorable songs across its 50+ minutes. Just cross your fingers with me that the bonus disc on the much-rumored deluxe edition will contain even more of their new material when it's supposedly released in May, and that their long-term rift with Tricky is starting to mend.