Portishead Third CD

Portishead have their hugely anticipated new album, “Third”, released on April 28th through Island Records. “Third” is the band’s fourth album in total and first since 1998’s Roseland NYC live”. The Bristol based trio, who will be touring the UK and Europe in March and April, will release Machine Gun” on April 14th. A digital version of the single will be available on www.portishead.co.uk and www.islandtunes.com from 8pm on the 10th April.

More than a decade after its self-titled sophomore outing, the pioneering British electronica ensemble Portishead finally resurfaced with 2008's THIRD, an album that both meets and defies expectations. Although the record features many of the group's aural signatures--most notably that exquisitely dark, cinematic mood and Beth Gibbons's heartbreaking vocals--it presents little in the way of vintage trip-hop, proving that sonic masterminds Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley aren't keen on repeating themselves. "Silence" kicks off the affair with tumbling percussion loops, while "Nylon Smile" drifts along on spare, slinky instrumentation, and "Machine Gun" moves to jarringly martial metrics that are battlefields away from any pop arena. Though THIRD is initially disorienting, repeated listens reveal a deeply engaging and fascinating album that stays true to the melancholy spirit of Portishead even as it wanders into unfamiliar territory.
Mystery burns at the heart of Portishead, lurking deep within their music and their very image. From the outset they seemed like an apparition, as if their elegant debut, Dummy, simply materialized out of the ether in 1994, as their stately blend of looped rhythms, '60s soundtrack samples, and doomed chanteuse vocals had only a tenuous connection to such Bristol compatriots as Massive Attack and Tricky. Soon enough, Portishead's unique sound was exploited by others, heard in swank clubs and high-end dinner parties on both sides of the Atlantic, a development that the trio of Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons, and Adrian Utley bristled at instinctively, recoiling into the darker corners of their sound on their eponymous 1997 sophomore album before fading back into the ether leaving no indication when they were coming back, if ever. They returned 11 years later, seemingly suddenly, with Third, supporting the album with candid interviews that lifted the veil from their personality, yet the mystery remained deeper than ever within their gorgeous, unsettling music.
That strain of uneasiness is a new wrinkle within Portishead, as in the '90s they favored a warm, enveloping melancholy, a rich sound that could be co-opted and turned into simple fashion, as it was by band after band in the heyday of the swinging '90s. So many groups grabbed ahold of Portishead's coattails that it's easy to forget that in 1994 there was no other band that sounded quite like Portishead -- not even Massive Attack and Tricky, who shared many surface sounds but not a sensibility -- and that is just as true in 2008, years after trip-hop has turned into history. Their cold, stark uniqueness isn't due to a continuing reliance on the cinematic textures of Dummy, although there are echoes of that here on the slow-crawling album openers "Silence" and "Hunter," songs just familiar enough to act as reminders of how Portishead are special, yet just different enough to serve notice that the trio is engaged with the present, even if they've happily turned into isolated recluses, working at a pace utterly divorced from the clattering nonsense of the digital world. Third is resolutely not an album to be sampled in 30-second bites or to be heard on shuffle; a quick scan through the tracks will not give a sense of what it's all about. It demands attention, requiring effort on the part of the listener, as this defies any conventions on what constitutes art pop apart from one key tenant, one that is often attempted yet rarely achieved: it offers music that is genuinely, startlingly original.
Surprises are ineRolling Stone (p.80) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "THIRD is an unexpected yet totally impressive return.....Portishead mix up dub, break beats, cathedral organ, Moroccan drones and even surf rock into a headphone album for sour times."
Spin (p.52) - Ranked #3 in Spin's "40 Best Albums Of 2008" -- "Both taut and unhinged, THIRD turns soul music into a bare-bulb interrogation of the soul."
Entertainment Weekly (p.119) - "Beth Gibbons' spectral vocals linger atop eerie, warped pulses of music to create a swirl of melancholia." -- Grade: B+
Uncut (p.84) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "Adrian Utley proves to be the key player through much of the record....Here his playing is frequently awe-inspiring....THIRD is the most stunning, stark and superb Portishead album yet."
Alternative Press (p.136) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Listening to Portishead has always been like floating through a waking dream, but now the sleek edges have atrophied into a dusty chaos, and it's all the more beautiful and perfect for the change."
Vibe (p.70) - "[Portishead] pays respect to innovators like Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Wendy Carlos, and the RZA....THIRD has the blare of revolution."
Q (Magazine) (p.131) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "THIRD's sole link with the past is Gibbon's voice, now less mannered and more careworn...especially on twinkling interlude 'Deep Water'..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.103) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[C]onstantly beguiling....Throughout, Gibbons' singing gives musical and emotional coherence."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.72) - Ranked #11 in Mojo's "The 50 Best Albums Of 2008" -- "Eleven years in the gestating, and totally worth the wait."
Paste (magazine) (p.52) - "THIRD is far and away the best, most punk thing in the Portishead catalog: a deeply transgressive album that bears a passing similarity to its predecessors but leaves most of the baggage behind..."
Clash (magazine) (p.108) - "Portishead have sidled back to express their tortured collective in more depth than most bands could ever dream off. They have subverted the natural order. Pain was never meant to feel this good."
Clash (magazine) (p.67) - Ranked #15 in Clash's "The 40 Best Albums of 2008" -- "THIRD emerged as an abrasive, industrial and intimidating record..."
Record Collector (magazine) (p.94) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[P]ositively infected with spanking new ideas....The jazz, terrifyingly, near Tropicalia prog and, gulp, ukuleles of Geoff Barrow's vast and vinyl library really come to the forefront."