Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 04/29/2008
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 inextricably intertwined throughout
Portishead. There are jarring juxtapositions and transitions, as how the barbershop doo wop of
"Deep Water" sits between those twin towers of tension of
"We Carry On" and
"Machine Gun," the former riding an unbearably relentless two-chord drone while the latter collapses on the backs of warring drum machines. Echoes of Krautrock and electronica can be heard on these two tracks, but that very description suggests that
Third is conventionally experimental, spitting out the same hipster references that have been recycled since 1994, if not longer. These influences are surely present, but they're deployed unexpectedly, as are such
Portishead signatures as tremulous string samples and
Utley's trembling guitar. Out of these familiar fragments from the past,
Portishead have created authentically new music that defies almost every convention in its writing and arrangement. As thrilling as it is to hear the past and present collide when
"Plastic" is torn asunder by cascading waves of noise,
Third doesn't linger in these clattering corners, as such cacophony is countered by the crawling jazz of
"Hunter" and the sad, delicate folk of
"The Rip," but a marvelous thing about the album is that there's no balance. There is a flow, but
Portishead purposely keep things unsettled, to the extent that the tonal shifts still surprise after several listens.
Such messiness is crucial to
Portishead, as there's nothing tidy about the group or its music. Experimental rock is often derided as being cerebral -- and this is surely enjoyable on that level, for as many times as
Third can be heard it offers no answers, only questions, questions that grow more fascinating each time they're asked -- but what sets
Portishead apart is that they make thrillingly human music. That's not solely due to
Gibbons' haunting voice, which may offer an entryway into this gloom but not its only glimpse of soul, as the perfectionism of
Barrow and
Utley have resulted in an album where nothing
sounds canned or processed, the opposite of any modern record where every sound is tweaked so it sounds unnatural.
Third feels more modern than any of those computer-corrected tracks as the group's very sensibility mirrors the 21st century, where the past is always present. Then, of course, there's that rich, fathomless darkness that
Third offers, something that mirrors the troubled days of the new century but is also true to that shimmering, seductive melancholy of
Dummy. Here, the sad sounds aren't quite so soothing, but that human element of
Portishead gives them a sense of comfort, just as it intensifies their sense of mystery, for it is the flaws -- often quite intentional -- that give this an unknowable soul and make
Third utterly riveting and endlessly absorbing.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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