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Amazon.co.uk:
Portishead's Third has been a long time coming, the result of a lengthy creative torpor following 1997's dark, distinctly underrated album Portishead. Importantly, though, they've shaken it. While the core trio of Beth Gibbons, Geoff Barrow, and Adrian Utley remains, this is quite a different band to Portishead's 90s incarnation: gone is the slo-mo turntable scratching and smoky jazz feel, replaced by heavy, brooding rhythms, vintage-sounding electronics, and spindly guitar. Still present, though, is that sense of emotional fracture and deep gloom. "Silence" opens with a dense drum loop which suddenly falls away to reveal Gibbons' voice, cold but magnificent: "Wounded and afraid, inside my head/Falling through changes". "Nylon Smile", meanwhile, is a fine example of Third's occasional folksy edge, an acoustic song reminiscent of Leonard Cohen that, around its midpoint, lifts off on a propulsive electronic rhythm, Gibbons holding one clear, hard note as synthesisers bubble beneath. At times, it's a harsh and foreboding listen: the electronic drums of "Machine Gun" might put off the listener hoping for smooth dinner party fare. But Third is a brave and forward-thinking return, and one great enough to justify its lengthy gestation. --Louis Pattison | | | | |
Average Rating : 
Rating :  - Temporary Ear Candy - But Deficient In Center
I cannot say that i'm a fan of Discordinant sound.
Many a musical snob calls this intelligent music.
I call it noise.
It doesn't take rocket science to create garbles of mathematical
sound. Just an analytical mind, & a want to stray far from center.
This release is very disappointing in my estimate.
Not in the fact that it is indeed so unlike old Portishead, but that it lacks in any firm tonal center for much of the duration.
As soon as you begin to want to connect to something, it is quickly ripped from underneath you.
There have been many geniuses that have pushed the bar far from the norm
but have maintained a central tonality in their work.
This is in my estimate where genius lies. You can play with time signatures,
tempo's, progressions, etc; Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, King Crimson, Prokofiev, Gorecki,
indian raga's & so on & manage to push the envelope.
But no center, then there's emptiness.
Like building a summer cottage without a foundation & expecting that a summer home can be a permanent home.
It falls apart.
It's fun for the immediate moment, but you quickly lose interest.
There are elements of mind & ear candy on this recording for certain.
However for me it is very temporary. Then i have no want to listen again for a good while.
Stereolab has done similar, but much warmer work over the past 7-8 years.
This cd isn't so much groundbreaking to me, as it is trendy.
For a generation of listeners who really have stopped listening with the decline of the trip-hop era,
or have been forever trapped therein it sounds like a revelation.
The name Portishead carries the weight.
Much like several other bands that had legendary cult followings during their respective era's,
only to take a long hiatus & then re-appear with an updated sound.
People were waiting & waiting, with the want for something to embrace.
Sounds like:
Elements of cold electronic like the algorithmic Autechre,
minus some of their rhythmic structure,
added elements of the coldest of Bjork's post Nelee Hooper vocal arrangements,
Lo-fi analog synth, via Stereolab,
but run through filters to once again create a very cold,
& detached feel.
Elements of the signature Portishead scattered to & fro.
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