Now this has been a damn long time coming. Portishead [MySpace] were one of my favourite bands when I was at school, and those trip-hop grooves still sound as good now as they ever did. But finally, after a ten year hiatus we are getting something new. Rumours have been circulating about this album, title ‘Third’ for about the past three or four years but only now has it come to fruition. I wish I could post a couple of tracks from it, but none have yet been OK’d for promotional purposes (not that that has stopped some other people…). When they do they will be here.
The album is slated for release on April 28th, and yo can already pre-order a box set. However, like pretty much every other much anticipated album has already leaked and I can assure you has been worth the wait. This is not quite more of the same from Portishead as the scene they, along with Massive Attack, were famed for creating has moved on a little bit. The new album lacks the laid back jazz-styled groove within which they created their mastery - and they have replaced it with sounds a lot more sinister and haunting.
Silence sounds like it could be the soundtrack to the climax of a thriller/horror film, which is a theme that could apply to various parts of this album. It is just slightly aggressive, subversive but most notably different to what I at least was expecting. The whole album is a mesh of numerous influences that were less apparent on their previous work, the aggression on tracks such as Machine Gun reminds me of some later Prodigy, whilst others like Deep Water would not have sounded out of place in the bluesy american folk of the 1930s. Yet somehow this album works as a whole.
The Rip reminds me more of some of Beth Gibbonns’ solo effort such the minimalist Show she created with Rustin’ Man. It is a masterpiece that I hope gets a single release, as it evolves around her slow paced haunting vocals with a subtle synth line and simple drums that shows off Portishead’s expertise.
One things that has annoyed some other reviewers has been the aggressive and repetitive drums that are central to a number of the later tracks on the album, including Machine Gun in the video below, but rhythm has always been central to the Portishead sound. They have just transformed this on a few tracks into taking their sound away from the background as the drums drive the song forward. We Carry On an example of how well all this works.
You need this album.
