Music : Third

Rating: - Worth the effort it takes to listen to
All the time away seems to have distilled Portishead's music into something true to the original and yet even more powerful than before. I am not sad that the scratching and sampling has gone - it worked on the other two albums, but to do it again after such a long break would have made it seem like an effort to recapture their glory days. They had to evolve, and they have, and the result is uncompromising and even in places uncomfortable to listen to...

...and yet that is what makes it great. Portishead don't seem to care if you like their music the first time - what they care about is that you come back to it a second time and "get it". Yes, it is as far from easy listening as trip-hop (if anyone still calls it that in 2008) can be, but just as Shakespeare is not easy on the eye yet is worth the effort (or so people tell you), Third is not easy on the ear and yet it will draw you in for repeated listenings.

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Rating: - Dark, disturbing, fractured stuff. And fantastic, with it.
Nothing prepares you for this album, and I think this may account for a lot of the negative reviews, here. It's a brilliant nightmare of an album, akin to being trapped in a haunted house with an old girlfriend who has been possessed by the tortured spirit of a torch singer who committed suicide. Every time this person speaks, this broken, pained, impassioned voice pours forth, and no matter which room you run to, there's always something uneasy and unsettling to drive you onward.

I have fond memories of the first Portishead, caught them live a couple of times, and liked the second album but this...this is a whole new beast. Think of one of those nightmares you have when you think you recognise an old friend in the street, run up behind them, reach out to turn them round...and whatever it is, it's terrifying, but you can't look away.

Give it a go. But be brave. It will haunt you, I swear.

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Rating: - Stately Progress Can Be Beautiful
This is a real progression from an innovative collective. Listeners looking for bands which consistently remake their moments of glory are directed towards the new Coldplay elpee. Those with a more adventurous palate will find what they desire right here.

Most printed reviews of this album made it sound rather intimidating. At the very least it was billed as a difficult listen.

But while there is tension and, occasionally, intentional dissonance, there is also space and variety of texture.

"Silence" sets up the whole album beautifully with a rather funky rumble of drums broken by a forlorn vocal. "The Rip" is a trip from the garden to the autobahn. And playing "Machine Gun" at a dinner party should ensure the regurgitation of the canapes.

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Rating: - Regression towards the mean
So you had the first albumn...produced
the second sounding like it was made before the first
and the third sounding like the demo's b4 the second made before the first.
have these guys actually done anything, or was their first albumn their last.
I guess you might think it was more them...
Okay maybe somethings are new...

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Rating: - An acquired taste
A decade in the making. So, we were expecting big things: and did it deliver?

Mention the name Portishead and you immediately associate the seductively haunting vocals of Beth Gibbons and a mix of music, known as Trip Hop or "The Bristol Sound" and you have 2 albums, both of a similar vein in the form of Dummy and Portishead.

So was Third more of the same?

No, and I'm delighted to say that, as even more repetition would have meant me wasting money on this album. Instead, we were treated to an album which could be compared to marmite itself. Loved by some, hated by others.

This album has gone for absolutely no middle ground whatsoever, almost making it sound as though the team have taken their every whim and put it into this album. At times we are given prog rock (Small), other times a riff that could have come straight out of the BBC Radiophonics Workshop, Pythonesque halting of tracks, and a track which as you listen to first sounds simply bizarre yet fast becomes addictive (Machine Gun). In between this can be found the familiarly haunting voice of Ms Gibbons and the trademark stylistic of the band.

If you are looking for a clone of Dummy (as some fans almost seem to have been hoping for) then you will be sorely disappointed.

It is a new century, and overall Portishead have introduced several new sounds to their repertoire: they are even more raw, edgy, and once you get over the initial surprise of the change, an absolute delight.

On my first listen I wasn't convinced, I thought that they had aimed too much at a niche. On my second it began to grow on me and I realised that it really is a very cleverly written album. Now it is an essential album in my collection.