Tom Waits and Massive Attack have released “Boots on the Ground,” a long-awaited landmark for both parties. The harrowing, sunken protest song is Waits’ first original song since 2011’s Bad As Me, and Massive Attack’s first release since their 2020 Eutopia EP, billed as the first of several imminent releases from Robert Del Naja and Grant Marshall’s electronic project.

“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,” Massive Attack said in a statement. “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.”

In keeping with both Waits and Massive Attack’s reputations for staring down depravity, “Boots on the Ground” merges their sonic perspectives for a scathing indictment of the war machine. Bone-rattling percussion evokes Waits’ most haunting offerings as it drives on a dark, minimal atmosphere. At its midpoint, Waits’ graphic recitation unravels into a ghostly drone of warped, wordless voices and distant marching snares, and the song both begins and ends with the minutes of the iconic singer-songwriter’s ragged breathing.

“One day many years ago, I accepted an invitation from Massive Attack to collaborate,” Waits recalled. “Their long release delay never worried me. Today, as in all of mankind’s yesterdays, guarantees this type of song will never go out of style.”

“Boots on the Ground” is set to a video of impunity culture’s seep into violence at home, documented by photographer thefinaleye. Massive Attack detailed in a release that the facts and statistics shares at the end of the film were quoted from the American Immigration Council, the American Civil Liberties Union, Inside Higher Ed, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, and the US National Library of Medicine, US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Privacy International and FactCheck.org, and encourages listeners to learn more and take action through aclu.org, veterans-aid.net, immigrantdefenseproject.org and freedomforimmigrants.org.

“Boots on the Ground” is the first Massive Attack release for Play It Again Sam, and the first to be withheld from Spotify after the artists expressed their intention to remove their catalog from the streamer in response to Daniel Ek’s investment in a defense technology company. It will be sold as an eco-friendly vinyl single, backed by a spoken-word piece from Waits. “Man’s fiasco folly is a feast for the flies,” he said. “Hence, the B side of Massive Attack’s upcoming 12-inch ‘The Fly’ features my appreciation for the winged nuisance.”

While updates on the music of Tom Waits are typically few and far between, March brought the announcement of Where the Willow and the Dogwood Grow, a new covers compilation of Waits and Kathleen Brennan’s songs, featuring contributions from Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson and more. Read about that collection here.