Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Uneasy listening, 29 April 2008
Portishead's eponymous second album sounded like they'd spent the years since their debut listening to their own music, and as such, was an often chilling and minimalistic exercise in distillation and refinement. By the same token, it also made any further venture in their distinctive style artistically redundant.
As a result, Third is necessarily a different animal. The sound is at once broader and more claustrophobic. Gone is the scratching and heavy sampling, but still with us (thankfully) is the distinctive and imaginitive percussion work. Dark grooves are rendered uncomfortable listening with the addition of high sustained synth tones. Gibbons's vocals are as ever full of shame, doubt and regret at things she's done or not done, but occasionally a little more upbeat and direct. The album in general is uneasy listening, often beautiful, often noisy, often obtusely changing direction at mid-point or ending suddenly - "Silence", for example, cleverly clips out just as its proggish coda starts to get self-indulgent.
There is even comedy here, too. Yet the ukulele-led (yes really) "Deep Water" is possibly the most disturbing song on the album - hearing Gibbons sing about not being afraid makes one wonder who she's trying to convince, and she comes across as tragically deluded. The song works as a palate-clearer too: the deliciously torturous drumming of "Machine Gun" is all the more punishing for following such whimsy, and its despondent Morricone-esque synth coda is a welcome surprise. "Threads" is a perfect ender, with that enormous, plaintive bass pulse radiating across the landscape like the cry of some wounded Lovecraftian leviathan.
How tempting it would be to set up a lounge ensemble, a Rhodes piano, two turntables and a heap of percussion, stand Beth Gibbons up in front of them and have her wail torch songs until her heart bled. How brave it is, then, that Third is so unlike that concept that it isn't even the opposite of it, it's some kind of unfathomable fourth-dimensional tangent.
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63 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You Can Polish A Third....., 13 April 2008
Portishead's Dummy was quite an achievement - rarely does a band come from nowhere with their debut and blow people's minds with a truly original sound. The second album, whilst perhaps sounding more 'live' on a few tracks, was essentially more of the same - which is no bad thing when your music is as unique as theirs. But there comes a time when a truly great band must prove their genius by going in a new direction, and somehow succeeding in retaining the vein of quality. Radiohead did it, Bjork did it, and now Portishead have done it - they just did it more emphatically....
Third is an album that took ten years to come. Barrow, Utley and Gibbons have done an admiral thing - they have spent many years cultivating the record, probably writing and rewriting, recording, binning and re-recording, to eventually have an album's worth of songs worthy to appear on a Portishead album. They have also, by the sounds of it, been listening to a LOT of different types of music along the way. Because no matter what people tell you, this is an EXTRAORDINARY record which, with the exception of two songs, sounds nothing like their first two albums.
Of course, Gibbon's voice is unmistakable, and that in itself makes it Portishead. But the way she uses it is different - gone are the melodic choruses from songs like All Mine and Sour Times (believe me, they are melodic compared to THIS album) - instead Gibbons' voice is now used almost as an instrument, another sonic layer, the subtle beauty of which may only hit you after several listens.
As well the vocals, the instrumentation on Third is very different from the previous albums. No scratches this time around, few breaks - instead, very harsh industrial drumming (Machine Gun)and doomy, proggy guitar riffs (Silence). There is even a moment, with stand-out track, The Rip, that you could dance along to in your bedroom, although you might want to paint your walls black first - because Third is one of the darkest albums you're likely to hear this year.
No band that I can think of has created a follow-up album like this - every song is unique, they are all superb, and it is nothing like the earlier albums. Moreover, despite Barrow et al's obvious desire to do something new, Third still feels organic when you listen to it - it isn't the sound of pretention, it's the sound of perfection.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well Worth the Wait, 25 Feb 2009
Having waited eleven years to return with such a highly anticipated third album, one could be forgiven for thinking that Portishead's 'Third' would be anything other than a shattering disappointment. For many of the band's dedicated following, questions as to how relevant Portishead could be in 2008 were sure to be raised. Furthermore, doubt was also bound to be cast over the possibility that they mightn't be able to recapture the essence of what made them such a unique band in the first place. With expectations of unprecedented scope, Portishead have somehow managed to create an album of such staggering brilliance as to render any preconceived doubts, ridiculous. 'Third' displays a significant development in Portishead's sound, whilst maintaining the underlying elements at the heart of their two previous albums. A concoction of electronic experimentation, tribal drum beats and Beth Gibbons' hauntingly fragile vocals, make for Portishead's darkest, most tension-fuelled album to date. Opener `Silence' sets the tone with a repetitive drum section and sparse bass allowing Gibbons to take full focus with typically introspective lyrics and delicate delivery. `We Carry On', arguably one of the band's finest achievements yet, adopts a similar approach, utilising tribal sounding drums to create almost unbearable tension, before reaching an epic, guitar-led chorus. `Machine Gun' shows Portishead at their most experimental. Centred on a menacing electronic drum beat, the track provides one of 'Third's' most distinctive moments, producing an atmosphere quite unlike anything they have previously released. In fact, `Machine Gun' may be seen as a bold statement of intent, given that it was the band's comeback single, albeit with an extremely limited release, the song clearly serves as a reminder that Portishead are not a band content with playing things safe.
'Third' also has its quieter moments; `The Rip' highlights the band's more melodic sensibilities via subtle acoustic guitar and vocals, while the eerie `Deep Water', perfectly placed between `We Carry On' and `Machine Gun', offers a moment's respite from the sonic abrasion of the tracks it lies between.
The one minor criticism that could be levelled at Third is the occasionally muddy sound of its production. Whilst the lo-fi production techniques at work here are well suited to most of the tracks, there are moments, such as on `Plastic', `Small' and `Threads', in which the overall clarity of the instrumentation can be slightly lost. However, such imperfections are easy to overlook in light of this most spectacular of comebacks. Let's just hope we don't have to wait quite so long for album number four.
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