Massive Attack, Tom Waits – Boots on the Ground

Massive Attack’s first single in a decade arrives with the weight you’d expect and then some. “Boots on the Ground” features Tom Waits on his first new studio recording since his 2011 album Bad As Me, a collaboration that apparently began years ago when Waits submitted his vocal and the band held onto it until now. Released via Play It Again Sam, the track runs four minutes and twenty-one seconds.

The production sits in the territory Robert Del Naja has been moving toward for years: dense, arrhythmic, dark. A gloomy piano figure runs through it, military snares break up the beat at one point, and the rhythm has the kind of ungainly lurch that fits Waits’ voice better than a clean groove ever would. Additional vocals come from Waits’ son Casey. The lyric, sung from the viewpoint of a soldier shaped and discarded by the machinery of war, lurches between the surreal and the disturbing. The track is blunt about its targets: bloated political authority, state violence, the gap between the people who declare wars and the ones who fight them.

The timing is deliberate. Del Naja was among 523 people arrested at a Palestine Action protest in London last Saturday. The accompanying film, made with US photo artist thefinaleye, cuts between Black Lives Matter protests, ICE raids, and the police response to both. Massive Attack describe the track as arriving “in an atmosphere of chaos” and note that “state authoritarianism and the militarisation of police forces are fusing again with neo-fascist politics.” Waits, for his part, is characteristically droll: “Today, as in all of mankind’s yesterdays, guarantees this song will never go out of style.”

“Boots on the Ground” is the first release under a Spotify exemption policy — it’s available on other streaming services but not Spotify, a stance Massive Attack took in 2025 citing CEO Daniel Ek’s investment in AI military technology company Helsing. The vinyl pressing is made from 100% recycled PET rather than PVC, packaged in FSC-certified recycled stock. All vinyl profits go to the American Civil Liberties Union and the US Immigrant Defense Project. A vinyl B-side, Waits’ spoken word piece “The Fly”, follows on 31 July. A spoken word reflection from novelist Omar El Akkad drops on 17 April.

A decade is a long time to wait for a record. This one earns the gap, and I suspect it’ll sound just as urgent in another ten years.

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Tour Dates:

Europe:

• 27.05.2026 — Helsinki, FI — Veikkaus Arena
• 30.05.2026 — Rättvik, SE — Dalhalla
• 01.06.2026 — Copenhagen, DK — Royal Arena
• 04.06.2026 — Barcelona, ES — Primavera Sound † HEADLINE
• 07.06.2026 — Berlin, DE — Zitadelle
• 08.06.2026 — Brussels, BE — Forest National

Asia:

• 26.07.2026 — Niigata, JP — Fuji Rock Festival † HEADLINE