Massive Attack and Tom Waits have shared their surprise collaboration with the powerful and politically-charged ‘Boots On The Ground’. Check it out below.
After teasing the track online, ‘Boots On The Ground’ arrives today (Thursday April 16) with a film created by the Bristol trip-hop icons, made with work by US photo artist thefinaleye and showing the the aftermath of the recent largest public protests in American history against “ICE raids, the militarisation of domestic forces, and state authoritarianism”.
“From the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 2020, to recent ICE raids on migrant communities and the killing of civilians that protect them,” the intro text to the video begins. “From the brutal state repression of public protest, to the reality of American homelessness that includes nearly 33,000 military veterans”. The video ends by detailing those who have lost their lives to ICE and the impact of oppressive retaliation to protest.
The track itself, Waits’ first new material since his 2011 album ‘Bad As Me’ and featuring additional vocals from his son Casey, begins with the heavy breathing of the oppressed with their neck beneath a knee, before Massive Attack lay a sombre and tender soundscape beneath Waits painting a nightmarish reflection of where we’re at.
“Big legs dangle from a helicopter hole, Big chug rhythm it’s gotta be now, ho! Brown, mean and young, Dumb and full of cum, What can you use a marine for? This is a fucking ass machine gun war.”
‘Boots On The Ground’ will be released as an exclusive vinyl (pre-order here) featuring b-side by Waits in the form of the “droll and sardonic spoken word piece”, ‘The Fly’.
“It’s a career honour to collaborate with an artist of the magnitude, originality and integrity of Tom, but this track is arriving in an atmosphere of chaos,” said Massive Attack. “Across the western hemisphere, state authoritarianism and the militarisation of police forces are fusing again with neo-fascist politics.
“Seen within the American emergency, at home and overseas, this track contains pulses of callous impulse and abandoned mind.”
Waits revealed that he accepted the invitation to collaborate with the duo “many years ago”.
“Way back then, we sent them ‘Boots On The Ground’,” he continued. “Their long release delay never worried me. Today, as in all of mankind’s yesterdays, guarantees this song will never go out of style. Man’s fiasco folly is a feast for the flies. Hence, the b-side of Massive Attack’s upcoming 12 inch ‘The Fly’ features my appreciation for the winged nuisance.”
Tomorrow (Friday April 17) Massive Attack will also publish an exclusive spoken word reflection on the themes of the work from novelist Omar El Akkad (American War, What Strange Paradise, and One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This).
As part of their continued environmental efforts, Massive Attack have partnered with Good Neighbor to produce an ‘EcoSonic’ pressing of the ‘Boots On The Ground’ vinyl manufactured using 100 per cent recycled PET (rPET) to make it fully recyclable and produced via an energy-efficient injection moulding process. The sleeves will also be made from 100 per cent recycled, FSC®-certified paper stock and outer slipcases produced from recycled polyethylene.
Massive Attack will be donating all profits from the sale of the vinyl edition to the American Civil Liberties Union and the US Immigrant Defense Project.
Massive Attack made headlines this week when Robert Del Naja was among 500 arrested in London on a peaceful protest in support of Palestine Action – a move by police he later called “unlawful” in a statement, when declaring that “the sense of madness can be overcome.
The duo have not released any new music since the 2020 EP ‘Eutopia’. Their last full-length album was 2010’s ‘Heligoland’.
In an interview in 2024 with NME, Del Naja confirmed that they had “some new music which we’ve been sitting on for four years”, and in November he shared that he was looking to release some of it in 2026. A spokesperson has shared that “further releases are scheduled prior and subsequent to the band’s run of live performances” this summer.
Their dispute with Spotify came to a head last year, when they revealed that they had asked their label UMG to remove their music from the platform. This came following reports that the company’s CEO Daniel Ek had led a €600million (£524million) investment into Helsing – a Munich-based company creating drones and artificial intelligence for military operations. A statement confirms that ‘Boots on the Ground’ is the first Massive Attack music distributed under a Spotify exemption policy.
The group also joined Fontaines D.C., Amyl & The Sniffers and over 400 other artists in backing the No Music For Genocide campaign in geo-blocking their work in Israel.
Massive Attack will embark on a European festival tour which kicks off next month.
In 2023, Waits’ longtime music agent Paul Charles claimed that the US singer-songwriter and actor had been “writing again” with the hope that the 76-year-old may tour.
As well as starring in Jim Jarmusch’s new film Father Mother Sister Brother alongside Adam Driver, Waits will release ‘Where The Willow And The Dogwood Grow’ – a curated “essential collection” of covers of songs by himself and wife Kathleen Brennan recorded by the likes by Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Ramones, Willie Nelson and Marianne Faithfull – on May 29.
Waits and Springsteen are also set to appear on the upcoming tribute album ’20th Century Paddy – The Songs Of Shane MacGowan’.