Portishead “Third” Review
What has been roughly ten years in the making finally sees release in the form of Third, the aptly titled release from the Bristol-based trio known in part for helping standardize trip hop in the mid ’90s. With the exception of a few scattered contributions and a Beth Gibbons solo album the group has been largely unspoken for in commercial recording since its 1997 self titled release, ever since mystique and anticipation have blossomed around the band’s absence. Now releasing an album of new material, matching its first two releases with an eleven song tracklist, Third may act as a question rather than an answer to the band’s layoff. Not only does Third‘s release question whether or not Portishead is still a relevant in a changed musical landscape, but it also suggests asking whether or not the trip hop Chinese Democracy was simply worth the wait.
Performing its first full set in roughly a decade at last year’s All Tomorrow’s Parties: A Nightmare Before Christmas festival the group presented five new, and at the time yet-untitled, tracks. Capturing the interest of fans the world over, the new material was received with a stark feeling of separation when contrasted with of the sounds of both Dummy and Portishead. The thoughts of a music departure are quite suitable, for to call the new music trip hop would be a disgrace to both what the term came to represent and to the honest beauty of the variation in Portishead’s sound visibly apparent with Third.
“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you and I don’t know what I’ll do without you” moans Gibbons on “Nylon Smile.” Almost serving as an echoing conclusion to ’97s “Only You,” Gibbons now plays the role of a songstress who has achieved her romantic grasping. Much in the same sense, Third seems to repeal any bloated stabs at grandeur which may be expected, rather its tracks are heavy with reaching innovation and variety in place of excessive beathugging.
“The Rip” blooms with a stench of cheap ’90s ambiance, accounting for a sound that could be construed as appropriate of the album if out of the context of the rest of its songs. But its sound grows appropriately while consoling Gibbons’ lyrics, adjusting to their delicateness in a way that Air’s denser electronic may have melded with Charlotte Gainsbourg had her 5:55 taken a different direction. Likewise the track’s following sounds further shed any idea of repetition between this and any other Portishead album; “Plastic” determined in its minimalist orchestral texture, and “We Carry On” sounding of deceiving gypsy with Adrian Utley’s guitar acting as a deceptive monkey scouring for unguarded pocket change.
And as the album continues to relax, “Deep Water” surprises as a ukulele-driven ballad, waxing just before Third chomps with “Machine Gun.” The song’s Downward Spiral beat provides a uniquely hard shell, an environment surprisingly suitable for the harmonically quenching Gibbons. Its beat unfolds into a psudo-industrialist electronic rhythm, one a bit too basic to be a Squarepusher anthem, though it teases some of Tom Jenkinson’s earlier subtleties.
Perhaps “Threads” is as close to what was last heard from Portishead, post-Portishead. The song’s early violin moan captures a hair of what was 1998′s live Roseland NYC album, Utley and Geoff Barrow adding haze to the transparent sound. “I’m always so unsure” groans Gibbons as “Threads” begins to wail, possibly attributing a few words to the theme to not just the album but the group’s prolonged recording hiatus. When so much is expected of a band so talented, yet so remotely unusual, uncertainty is not merely granted but presumed; however Third as a solid body of work fulfills in its surprising assuredness, failing to even whisper suggestions that Portishead was ever irrelevant. Third is 10 years worth of anticipation fulfilled.
wow,the first track is gorgeous. There is a god, and she loves Portishead. Looks like Bristol is back, Martina Topley-Bird, Tricky will also have new material soon, now what about Massive Attack.
cheers/
Sir, the entire album is beautiful I can’t recommend it enough!
Sultry,intense,moody…
Brilliant as ever!
Viva Portishead,
Elysabeth
excellent album, refreshing and inovative!
Maginficent exploitation of textures and ambients leading Portishead standard sound into new directions! A perfect return!
We Carry On is simply awesome – dripping with menace yet driving and alive all at once…
I’ve been listening to the album, and it’s slowly creeping in. The new single is reflective of one extreme of the sound, but they’ve not lost any of the classic cinematic feel, if not acheieved through different means. Even though I have the MP3s, I can’t wait to go to the record store and pick it up and see the other until now starved Portishead-heads there too. It’s a cultural thing!
I think it’ll be well worth the money – really interested in getting the box set but at a whopping $80 I’m a little hesitant!
amazing!
post-modern-portishead!
After listen this album a THIRD time, iam shure its shit. Sorry.
the entire album is amazing in its own way.sure it differs from their earlier work,but i feel that’s a good thing.to me,this album is even darker and more serious than their earlier work.i love it.
I like the term serious, really seems that way – doesn’t it?
“Third is ten years worth of anticipation fulfilled.” Couldn’t have said it better myself..
I’m listening to the album now and so far it’s brilliant. Machine Gun is an amazing song.
They sound like a band who have just discovered old synths and are using them for the sake of it. It also sounds half finished. Some flashes of Portishead magic but not enough. Disappointing.
Third is dreadful, disappointing, tired and uninspired. Beth sounds frail and flat. The lyrics are pedestrian. It has none of the magic of Dummy. Portishead had one moment of sublime inspiration, and it’s been downhill ever since. Machine-Gun is a childish musical joke. The rest of the songs are moaning drivel and non-sense. This album is substandard and will – hopefully – have been forgotten in few months.
We’ll always have Dummy!!
The most adventurous and brilliant record in years. Only rival is the new Notwist. I want them on a double bill. Anyone who thinks this record is not beyond expectation is just looking for a new hair salon record. This is a personal, deep record.
i love it. musicians have to do ART. art asks questions that may not have an answer… art that does not question anything is garbage…when hearing it i think of minimalism, abstractionism, WAR, a dark sea, dark, a dark room, also contemporary classical music. thanks a lot!
I agree, serious is certainly the main emotion I get from this album. I can’t say whether or not waiting 10 years for this was worth it, but as an album itself, I’m not dissapointed. It’s darker and maybe even more mature. I think that even the younger “thinking” crowd (thinking being the keyword) will appreciate this with what’s going on in our current society (and even in the music industry itself…I mean c’mon).
Anyway, I give this album a 9.
gave this album a fair shot..listened to it for around 6-7 times… it appears to get on my nerves more and more each time. blows! not what i expected
I really don’t get it. Its lacking in soul, passion and the lyrics are terrible.
I have written a full review here:
Portishead Third Review
Isnt “Deep Water†just ripped from the ukulele song in the jerk?!
Terrible. Total waste of bandwidth, Im just glad I didnt waste money on it. its the noughties equivalent of the Stone Roses Second Coming
Hard work – but it should be worth it!
Sorry, folks, the implication that people who don’t like this album are “unthinking” or “hair salon record” junkies is as inappropriate as it is patronizing. I love offbeat, creative, innovative, emotionally engaging music, and this album sucks quite badly. Minimalism for its own sake is not a badge of artistic pride; it’s just boring. There were maybe one or two brief emotional tugs in the entire work, and they were quickly smothered by the flat, warbling, aimless, self-indulgent delivery.
omfg best album of 2008 by far.i’m not a trip hop fan,im a heavy metal fan but i can admit tha portishead are truly gods…
This is obviously a marmite album. Love it or hate it. I’m totally disappointed that they came out with what seems to be the theme tune from the Terminator movie.
It is just annoying, monotone blandness.
Just seen Machine Gun performed on Jools. Watched the band members bob their heads, instensely, in time to…..oh yeah; somebody hitting a drum machine really badly. Cack!!!!
I think it is a case of the ‘Emporers New Clothes’.
Apparently the album in its entirety has already been remixed by Noise Floor Crew. I got a preview in my inbox and it’s brilliant. I hate to say that I might actually like it more than Third. Here’s what I’ve heard so far. Apparently the rest is coming?
ZIP FILE
http://www.mediafire.com/?bxns1zoqdsq
DOWNLOAD LINK
SEPARATE FILES
Songs in ZIP
01 We Carry on (remixed)
http://www.mediafire.com/?syxzw9go4fm
02 Machine Gun (remixed)
http://www.mediafire.com/?xzmmnmgmyrg
03 Nylon Smile (feat WAR GAMES)
http://www.mediafire.com/?zg1sjzii0j9
04 Magic Doors (remixed)
http://www.mediafire.com/?mwjfziy2ycc
We Carry On is my favourite song. Sounds like an MRI scanner but somehow in a good way.
I love Beth Gibbons vocally, but I was not impressed with this album at all.
Wow, I just got a chance to listen the remixes by Noise Floor Crew and I agree, much BETTER.
It was a long wait, but it was (mostly) worth it. I cant say I’m as blown away as I was when first hearing “Dummy”, but it is good to hear some new output, and to allay the fear that “Third” would go the way of Mr Rose’s new album (although I think most people are kinda beyond caring about that record). Not sure “Machine Gun” was the best first single – it seems to suggest quite a shift in sound, that the rest of the album doesn’t really back up. Not sure if this will be destined to be a
classic, up there with the first two records, but it does have its moments – I can’t get “Magic Doors” out of my head – the chorus is probably as close to ‘anthemic’ as I’ve heard from them – when that piano chord hits – shivers down the spine! Lets just hope it doesn’t take 11 years for the next record!
I likes. But I agree that I still yearn for a more natural progression from Dummy and Phead. The album still holds a theme and you can’t front on Beth’s voice. There hasn’t been a triphop album with consistent quality bitter sweetness. Massive Attack sounds so mediocre now after Mezzanine. Many either went acoustic (not a bad thing) or electropop (not always bad either) or just plain boring. I hope what they have next falls somewhere between 3rd and Phead..a little more horns and strings and the tripped out bop.
is English not your native language? it would take more time than I care to invest to point out the many solecisms in this howler of a review. you do not write well. read up! read Marcus, Christgau, and practice writing. think about your sentences. no one will care what you think unless you know what good writing sounds like. do you read anything???
I’d be lying if I said that I’d ‘been waiting 10 years for the new album’, I thought Dummy was great but wasn’t holding my breath waiting for the follow-up and I find it hard to believe that most of the people that are saying ‘was it worth the ten year wait’ were ticking off days in their calendar in anticipation.
I must say when I stumbled onto the pre-release interviews and read quote alluding to a ‘new’ sound, I expected the worst – a feeble attempt to escape from their much maligned trip-hop pidgeonhole by attempting to be ‘experimental’.
I must say, however, that even if that was their aim they’ve created a very good album. It most certainly is a departure from their ‘old’ sound, and they could’ve taken the easy route and impressed their middle-aged, middle-class, chill-out compilation buying contingent of fans by releasing a ‘downtempo’ album but instead they’ve created a dark, brooding and, without wanting to resort to cliché, menacing album.
It gets a thumbs-up from me. Though you would’ve though ten years on Gibbons’ might’ve been prescribed some anti-depressants.
third can only be described as a benchmark in popular music. It is a plea for change, a marking in a new sound. Portishead was always about progression and innovation and it saddens me that people are missing this point. This will be a cult classic in due time.
Music is taste, but this album is musically really a disappointment. Especially if you compared it with their older work, I miss the nice harmonies, the sublime melodies and well-produced beats. It’s all very basic and boring.
Why do people keep knocking this album? I think it is brilliant; best one yet. Best songs: We Carry On, Machine Gun and Magic Door
One thing is obvious: Third seems to be a polarizing album, garnering either high praise or ugly abuse from legions of fans. I can’t quite find myself fitting into either category. Certainly, this can’t be considered Portishead’s very best (and I think those positioning themselves behind that comment know deep inside it’s not the case). However, the unwarranted and obtuse attacks on the album are nothing but uncalled-for gibberish. Indeed, there’s no accounting for taste, but to suggest that Third is anything less than a solid effort in a new direction is just absurd. Not the best of the year, but assuredly not the worst. I give it a B (I am a teacher, after all).
I am not into grading albums, and yes of course it’s a matter of taste, but their earlier stuff is undeniably more melodic and accessible. This album is filled with discord in the majority of songs, and where it’s not it’s depressing. Maybe that’s what they were going for, I mean this is the same reason I can’t stand Stravinsky, but lots of people think he’s a genius. This album takes Portishead into Stravinsky of trip hop, and I’m sad to say I am not a fan.
To everyone who is raving about this albulm! Go back and listen to the brillaince of their last 2. This lacks those amazing chorus lines and powerful melodies. They should have kept their legacy by not releasing anything more. The albulm sounds like noise to me. Portishead has past their peak. Sorry.
I agree with Bart and Tony and I’ve been waiting 10 years for this. whilst I was expecting something different – all bands have to evolve – it feels souless and almost unfinished. After 3 proper listens through I have to say I feel it’s well below what I expected and I can’t see it growing on me. The other feeling I got was that they’d sat down with Reason and just knocked it out. Machine Gun (almost) sounds something I’d knock up with a drum look, phaser and flange! I don’t want to be controversial and yes it’s a taste thing but this is far and away from what I was expecting.
The arguments about this album are very similar to the arguments I heard whe Human After All came out. I think this album is Portishead’s – Human After All. Personally I find that this album has a very deceptive depth to it and can really only be appreciated with undivided attention and an excellent stereo system.
It sounds like Beth’s solo albums. The title is also… kinda… “Third?”
I can’t rewind this. I’m using the cd as a coaster for “tea-time”. Why didn’t they just create another band and title this something else rather than Portishead. Sorry, truly sad. : (
I`ve just listened it for the first time. I`m really disappointed so far.
As someone above wrote – It’s all very basic and boring.
Hope that it changes after a few listenings, but – to be honest – I don`t think it does.
Haha, everyone is talking rubbish and rating this album like music was an easily quantifiable thing. Its art, its music. You might hate it, you might love it, you might hate it then grow to loves it. Who cares? I listen to it and dont need people to rate it before I can enjoy it.
i have very limited understanding when it comes to some of the reviews i have just read. it seems that people are reaching for reasons to like this album, and to be honest i think you are cutting portishead too much slack. lets be honest here. the album is dire. machine gun goes nowhere; the synth at the end sounds directly lifted from the blade runner ost, we carry on sound like a pre-pubescent in their room crying into their ps2 controller. that may sound harsh, but hell it’s been ten years! i love portishead, dummy and the self-titled are amazing, but third sound like aphex twin fucking around on his laptop on an acid come down. horrible. but it’s okay for aphex to do that because he has released millions of albums. my problem is that portishead are held in great esteem, when they frankly they don’t have the output to warrant such status. and as for the whole argument about musical art, well derrr! of course music is art, but there are two kind of art. good art and shit art. i may be just stupid. i may not ‘understand’ the album and thats why i don’t like it. irrelivant. art shouldn’t make you feel stupid. it should make you feel enlightened, and third is an album that in my opinion reduces art to nothing and it is unfortunate that audiences are willing to accept this apparent void in creativity.
What happened to the beautiful, jazzy melodies? This completely sucks!
bag of shite
This reaction reminds me of Radiohead’s Kid A. If they changed their sound there’s a reason: they had to develop artistically. Luckily they don’t care about commercial reaction.
I couldn’t disagree more with this review. The new album is magnificently beautiful!
Due to the breadth of experimentation this album has the potential to seed mutliple directions for the next decade.
‘Small’ is beautiful.
just the 50% is good… i love portishead… but, really it did not like a lot than the previous…
well… i was ansious for this album because i was pretty satisfied with the previous work of portishead they represent the best time in my life, my adolensence, my furies, my love… so when i realise that they will take out a new album i didn’t know what to spect… the thing is that i forget about it and continue with my life then i went to a discs store just to pass by and i saw it there and i couldn’t belive it IT WAS THERE! and i didn’t doubt it i had to have it, i mean it’s portishead !
then with the disc in my hand and going back home i was confused because i thought maybe they just repeat themselves and this will be a shadow of the previous once… i played it and…
didn’t like it at the first time…
and didn’t want to play it again…. i prefered to wait a little bit and dedicate more time to do it again maybe later so meanwhile i played IN RAINBOWS from radiohead and i loved it!
in/rainbows… i mean
(sorry for the english)
but then i gave it another listening and NOW I LOVE IT!!
Where is the slo-mo turntable scratching and smoky jazz feel?
Looks like aliens abducted the real Portishead and replaced them with a bunch of second rate musicians and a monkey for a drummer!
We’ve been swindled…
Hehehehehe….less than 2 months out and already turmoiling…i knew this since “Roseland”, P sound would never be the same again…and now take it or leave it…well…i´m taking it!!! YES, I AM TAKING IT!!! “Machine Gun” was my first and so far my best moment on this one, and the album shows an x amount of progress in the sound, the acoustic and the stereophony rule, and THAT Portishead feel is still there…
Sooo, when even the most fierce (official) music reviewers give “Third” a 10/10, in a 8-10 proportion, surely i´m not wrong…One of the albums of the year?!?!
Two things that stand out for me.
Firstly time and nostalgia will always accompany Dummy. Memories are replayed and rewound. Dummy became a standard soundtrack to many a boozy hangover and nights spent under the covers with loved ones. For this reason I was always going to struggle with ‘third’. Give ‘Third’ time. Give it experience. Give it success and failure. Give it sex, give it drugs, give it hope and give it fear.
Secondly ‘Third’ is not merely experimental. Sure, it sounds different, faster and edgier, but the emotional catches are still there. There are breathtaking moments of beauty, the album is full of shadows that unravel while being bathed in moments of pure, white light (listen to ‘rip’). The warm innocence of ‘deep waters’ is adjacent to elements of film ‘noir’ mixed with cold, unassuming percussion. The album is wonderful – Lets celebrate Dummy on Cryptonite.
Err…I seriously don’t know what to say I absolutely love Portishead but maybe they should have released it in September/ October when we are all getting in that depressively dim mood of winter, I don’t know I’m off to listen to it again maybe this time…
This album is fresh, and makes me want to eat cottage cheese. for real.
Portishead will always be relevant; the writer of this review never was. Dry up and blow away.
It’s truly superb. An ethereal, celestial bliss cloaked in a thick, black smoke. It evokes asphyxiation and admittedly a stuggle to catch your breath…. a suffocating, lacerating, eerie, entracing piece of art. Hard, jagged beats accompanied with soft eerie swirls. It’s beautiful. Dark and brooding. Some of you fuckers are truly missing something quite spectacular.
Hmm terrible. The first song has a sample looping of a sound that reminds me of a fat guy fucking a hooker on a squeky bed. *squeak* *squeak**squeak**squeak*. It spoils the rest of the song.
And the song abruptly end as if someone cut the power to my speakers. WTF?
The rest of the songs has some notable moments, thrown in between repetetive melancholic although sleep inducing music.
This is good but nothing spectacular. The WORST Portishead album.
And oh yeah I also noticed the Terminator theme song Machinegun. This song sounds like a terrible 80s techno some 13 year old did by randomly pressing the keyboard. Really terrible.
Oh they should stay off any digital/computer synthesized samples. It really really makes their music sounds like the rest of the digital music crap that’s all over the Internet made by 13 year olds
on their mum’s computer.
Before you post that you hate this album, think on this – people have their own opinions. If I say it’s great and you think its shit we’re both right. I would prefer people that didn’t like it to say something like “It wasn’t my thing, i like different stuff” rather than something offensive like “this band sucks, they don’t know what they are doing”. Ta.
ahem… when you put artists on a pedestal, and are subsequently unsatisfied with their output, you deserve what you get! rather than knock your “gods” down, why don’t you stfu and make your own damn music!
Nice surprise from Portishead!
amen brother. this album absolutely crackles; shit is electric son.
First listen – major disappointment. Read reviews to see what I might be missing, or confirm my feelings about it and found many people LOVING this CD. Waited a couple of months and tried it again…not as offensive, but still doesn’t have what I had come to love about Portishead. Here, I finally find some people willing to give this album its due – it’s crap! Phead got the creepy part right, but left out the beauty, the rich, multitextured sound, and memorable melodies and lyrics that made us fall in love with them back when.
As in any band that changes style continuing to explore,(Dylan going electric,Radiohead doing Kid A, Beatles with Revolver, etc), there will be criticism. However Portishead are evolving and are not merely relying on an old recipe for success, and should be commended for it.
If 70′s Pink Floyd and NiN were to come back fused as a band, this is an album I would have expected from them.
As I am an avid fan of both, you have guessed that I love Third !
Changing style is one thing. Departing from everything that makes your music interesting is another. I loved Portishead’s earlier work. I really do not find Third interesting at all. Whereas previously the music had a lot of range and dynamics, this is really quite monotonous isn’t it? Where is Beth’s range? She is constantly in her “small” voice, never growls and no sass. The music just loops. Every time the music seems to be building energy reminiscent of the emotional crescendos of the prev 2 albums, everything fizzles out before exhaling any real emotion. At best, it teases. But not very well. Once I found it went nowhere, I lost all interest. Honestly, it sounded like the band was disinterested and simply fulfilling a contract.
it has the same portishead feel to me and i think its pretty much okay.
As with several others on here, I was anticipating this new album… got it, listened to it, HATED it. Was SO upset. Then, I let it play through one [late] night, and suddenly, it was awesome. Now, it spins once a day. I am so glad I didn’t toss it on first listen.
Tossed it in the jam-box a few weeks back and it stands up, can’t say that I feel any different about it now than I did then. Still a solid album from start to finish.
It is incompetent in so many ways to throw the comparison of Chinese Democracy around so liberally… mainly because Portishead started working on this albums material in or around 2005-6, didn’t expect it to shatter the face of music as drastically like the next British invasion or UFO, never recalled it, and didn’t get plastic surgeries to accompany the comeback!! I feel like writing three pages about the b.s. in this review, but when scrolling, everyone disagrees with this author that has said all the predictable counterparts to anything positive that came out of this disc. All of them, stereotypical at best; many to most could have been thought of without even giving the disc a listen! i.e. the assumptions I myself had before doing so…
I’m way late to this party, but I’ve had this album since about a week after it was released; and now for a story…
I was going through my music collection today and came across an album cover I didn’t recognize. After looking over it for a moment I realized that this was the latest Portishead album. “Where did this come from?”….oh right…I bought it how long ago? Portishead is decent, so why haven’t I been listening to this?
To answer all my questions, I opened the case to see the receipt sitting on the cd. I tucked it behind the booklet and popped the album in my stereo for a long overdue (or so I thought) listen.
Now I must say that I’ve always been a fan of trip hop, with Portishead and Massive Attack sitting on top of my choice playlists. But after listening to this third outing, I know why Massive Attack has always garnered more playtime.
I agreed with many of the comments before mine in that less isn’t always more. Sure the album has some nice moments, but wow is it ever dull. I’m not going to apologize for disliking this album. Ain’t going to happen. Why? Because the ‘Port is Dead’ (say it fast)…. Stick it out with their 90′s material.
The discordant and sometimes jarring moments on this CD exquisitely mirror these times we’re living in. Portishead was always very socially conscious (Glory Box, Cowboys, Western Eyes) though in a very subtle, intelligent way. Machine Gun is a very political song with an odd sort of upbeat message amongst all the machine gun fire. It’s an uncomfortable song because, hello, war and violence are things that should make us uncomfortable. Music isn’t all about getting that warm, fuzzy feeling. It can and does delve into self examination and observing closely our own emotions and desires. That’s what Portishead is about, and that’s what they’ve done brilliantly here ‘Third’.
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS ALBUM. FUCKING AMAZING!
Liked Dummy and Portishead, but never fetishised them. Barely noticed Portishead were gone until I came across this album, so no great expectations one way or the other. Now I play Third, or parts of it, most days, and am hypnotised by it. Particularly “Small” and “Threads”. In part, that’s probably because I’ve always liked depressing music and, in the case of “Small”, three beats to the bar. There are harshnesses and things which, frankly, don’t work on the album, but I don’t care, because the bits that do work are good enough to make the whole very worthwhile indeed. For me.
Way back when I listened to “Dummy” a lot, and loved it. But I wasn’t a “Portishead fan,” just liked that album, but haven’t played it in a while. Now I just picked up “Third” on a whim (at the library!) AND ABSOLUTELY love it. It’s somehow more aggressive than Dummy (which for me would normally speak against it), but the tunes and sounds are simply mesmerizing.