It begins with the sound of laboured breath, then an ominous clattering – like the tick of a grandfather clock – and stark, moody piano notes. “Boots on the Ground”, Massive Attack’s first new music in more than a decade, feels like the most powerful new protest song in years.
A collaboration with the gravel-voiced Tom Waits, also returning to music for the first time since his 2011 album, Bad as Me, “Boots on the Ground” is accompanied by a video using imagery from the US photographer thefinaleye. The striking visuals depict recent anti-ICE demonstrations in America alongside Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, on 5 May 2020.
As for the song itself, Waits’s lyrics are delivered in his trademark rumble: “Now who the hell are these federal pricks?/ Hiding in the senate like a bloated ass tick/ Air conditioned f***stick loafers/ Sittin in a room full of army posters.”
He continues: “A coal to a diamond, a vote into law/ They campaign up all the blood they can draw/ Mould your world, a soldier’s just clay/ How much does every soldier way? Cut you off at the ankles and they throw that away.”
Massive Attack, the trip-hop collective formed in Bristol in 1988, surely could have had their pick of collaborators, but arguably none would have been as well-suited as Waits, who at 76 has witnessed decades of upheaval and political turmoil in his native US. His instantly recognisable tones add a sense of resilience to the song, a veteran snapping and snarling at the chaos and injustice he’s witnessing once more.
Waits has a number of politically tinged songs in his catalogue, many of which focus on anti-war sentiment, trauma, greed and cycles of violence. In 2004, he released what was regarded by critics as his first “explicitly” political song, “Day After Tomorrow”, interpreted as a criticism of the Iraq War. In 2006, he shared the blues number “Road to Peace”, about the Israel-Palestine conflict and his disgust at America supplying Israel with arms.
While the songwriting in this new Massive Attack track could reference any number of conflicts, its themes feel grimly pertinent on a week where Trump continues to unleash chaos on the world stage and send mixed messages about his disastrous Iran offensive. Waits’s refrain of “boots on the ground” is a lambasting of America’s sacrificing of young men and women for its own ends – questioning if those soldiers even know or believe in what they’re fighting for – and perhaps also an encouragement to citizens to take to the streets and protest.
It certainly echoes Massive Attack’s own long-running activism. Del Naja himself was arrested just last week after attending a mass protest against the ban on Palestine Action in central London. In a statement posted afterwards, the musician said that “a few hours in police custody under unlawful arrest is a very small price to pay”.
“Our democracy, and the civil rights and liberties that now sit in constitutional law were literally built on small actions like these,” he said. “Perhaps that’s why this draconian government wants to crush them?”
Waits revealed in a statement that he received an invitation from Massive Attack to collaborate “many years ago”, but was not perturbed by the long delay in its release. “Today, as in all of mankind’s yesterdays, guarantees this song will never go out of style,” he said. “Man’s fiasco folly is a feast for the flies.”
“Boots on the Ground” is being released on vinyl with an exclusive B-side provided by Waits – a sardonic spoken-word piece titled “The Fly”. It is Massive Attack’s first music to be released under a Spotify exemption policy, after they removed their catalogue from the platform in protest against CEO Daniel Ek’s £520m investment in AI military technology company Helsing.
Alongside the track and film by thefinaleye, Massive Attack are publishing a spoken-word reflection from the novelist Omar El Akkad, author of the novels American War and What Strange Paradise, as well as the non-fiction work, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.
Massive Attack said in their own statement: “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. 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.”
“Boots on the Ground” is out now. Massive Attack are on tour from 27 May 2026.
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