UMC Vinyl & CDs

Review: New albums from Aussie fusionists the Avalanches don't come around that often, so the appearance of We Will Always Love you four years after its predecessor, Wildflower, is genuinely big news (it previously took them 16 years to record the follow-up to their acclaimed 2000 debut, Since I Left You). Somewhat predictably, they've hit the mark once more, supplementing their usual dense sample collages and multi-coloured, genre-bending compositions (a little psychedelia, Balearica and synth-pop here, a dash of dream pop, future R&B and synth-pop there) with vocals and musical contributions from a dizzying cast-list of like-minded guests (think Neneh Cherry, Johnny Marr, Jamie XX, Blood Orange, Tricky, Cornelius and Kelly Moran). Hard to pin down but royally entertaining from start to finish, We Will Always Love You is a triumph.

Review: Two decades have passed since Massive Attack signaled a new stage in their career with the dark, paranoid and claustrophobic brilliance of "Mezzanine", their third studio album. Given the current global political climate, it arguably sounds even more relevant 20 years after it first hit stores. This time round, the re-mastered original set comes accompanied by something none of us have heard before: Mad Professor's complete dub translation, which was slated for release around the turn of the Millennium but for one reason or another never came out. Like his take on "No Protection", it's an inspired set of revisions that takes 3D and Daddy G's dense and red-eyed originals into wild new bass-heavy places. Even if you own the original version already, it's well worth picking up this special edition just for that alone.