Portishead - Third
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Free Music Notes for Third
Free Music Review: The best album I've heard since 2005
Hit: 5 Stars
Upon my first listen or two of Third, I didn't think it was that much of a progression from their debut, Dummy, nor their self-titled sophomore album. But I've come to realize I was ever so wrong.
The dark, sexy vibe that Portishead pulled off before is now just, well, dark. Extremely eerie, and very sinister. Their music used to sound like something you'd hear in a smoky and dingy underground club at 3 a.m. with others around smoking, talking, and maybe even dancing. Third sounds like something you'd listen to alone in a dark and musty basement of an abandoned building with one hanging light bulb flickering on and off.
There is definitely a Silver Apples influence here, and it makes me salivate. I love the Silver Apples, but Portishead takes their template and adds Beth's vocals and more developed songwriting, and creates something beyond anything the Silver Apples ever did.
It's difficult to try and describe the emotions this album evokes. It's dark, but it's not depressing. It's strangely comforting, but in a cold way.
I really want to point out some highlights, but I don't know what I'd exclude. Every single song on Third grows on me more and more upon further listens. I suppose I'll say that "Nylon Smile," "The Rip," "Plastic," "We Carry On," "Machine Gun," and "Threads" are the songs that particularly stand out to me.
Many times an album like this comes out that wears its influences on its sleeve, and its easy to downplay it because it will "never be like the original." But honestly, this blows much of its influences out of the water.
Free Music Review: My generation's Dummy
Hit: 5 Stars
For those of us born too late for the initial revolution of Dummy and Portishead, and thus made to play catch up listening to those influential albums years after their release, this album is a blessing. It is not the sound of a band playing catch up or merely attempting to re-create a "classic" sound previously mastered, but a band interested in creating new types colors in the popular music palate. The structure of these songs are intellectually stimulating while not being too cerebral, there is always emotion put into the work, without sacrificing one for the other. It is a sound that is new, relevant and exciting.
Being the unique work that it is, it is liable to alienate some fans of their previous work. These alienated fans no doubt have placed there own expectations and opinions of what a Portishead album should sound like onto the music before even hearing it. Try listening to it without thinking "This is Portishead and it's going to sound like...." Putting into that comfortable place in your head where Dummy and Portishead fit so well simply will not due for this album. This album is a much more mature, eclectic sound. It encompasses a wider array of emotional conflict and expression to simply limit it to a preconceived notion.
I am extremely glad and ultimatley surprised to hear how fantastic this album is. It leaves Dummy behind, while not completely forgetting its graces. Like Rsdiohead's "The Bends" Dummy is certainly a influential time capsule of a sound too imitated by others to be repeated. I am personally glad to hear the hip-hop and scratching behind them.
Free Music Review: Review from Melt Magazine - Columbus, OH
Hit: 5 Stars
Anyone who first sampled Portishead's equally sulky and scintillating, espionage influenced trip-hop after 1998 surely had a dream or two crushed under the weight of the trio's ten year hiatus from touring and releasing new material. Roseland NYC Live, authenticated the bands short but sweet legacy with one of the most prolific, profound and exceedingly produced live performances ever birthed by the human condition. With Third we find beloved singer Beth Gibbons ditching the hooky choruses that made the first two albums, in favor of a dynamically diminishing delivery that drops the demeanor of the new tracks to a chilling degree of alienation compared to the cool, easier-to-relate-to gloom of earlier work. The in-house production from Geoff Barrow is equally unhinged offering only a few glimpses of the old formula through a veil of experimental song structure. The sounds themselves bring to mind an image of the trio carrying a laptop into the musky music room of an old English estate that was abandoned in the 1930's and setting up studio amongst rickey organs and warped, rusty and otherwise ruined instruments. An insolent aspect of Portishead's unnerving new personality comes across in the albums first single "Machine Gun", a track that is two minutes of song followed by two minutes of repetitive, ring modulated drum samples. Those fans expecting a return to form or a jovial resurrection are met by an album that makes an infallible case against the old saying "time heals all wounds". Third sounds like ten years worth of suffering in all the right ways. - Tyler Starkey
[...].
Free Music Review: An amazing album which will likely only be properly appreciated in years to come.
Hit: 5 Stars
Like most people i didn't expect this album to sound as it did. On first listen i thought it was rushed and demo material at best. I loved silence from the first listen, but the rest was a harder sell. It is as different from old Portishead as i imagine you can get while still being Portishead. The more you listen to this album the more it grows on you. I am almost glad this isn't getting the fame the other albums did. This one really seems like it will age well. Their is some different musical concepts on this album which clearly seem a bit advanced for the average casual listener. Their previous material was so easy to get, this takes a bit more. Their is a clear influence from more electronic sources. You can hear influences, but in a way that isn't unoriginal, but more exciting than anything. This one is also much, much more dark, even the recording style is dark, which really sets the mood. Like i said before, initially it seems rushed but the more you listen, the more impressive it is. Honestly this is by far now my favorite Portishead album, after hearing them doing this it is actually hard to listen to the old stuff. Also most of the old stuff was sample based, so clearly it sounds more slick, this isn't, this was the real deal, real instruments and some of them are probably sounds that can never be perfectly reproduced again. Hopefully Portishead won't go and disappear again, it would be a real shame to the music world if this stops here.Free Music Review: Portishead - Expanded and Still Progressive
Hit: 5 Stars
After hearing the advance notice of a new Portishead album I decided to revisit their second album which I had sort of dismissed at the time, initially put off by the it's different approach (from Dummy's vastly compelling hip-hop based sound). After listening to it now I find that I really like it. Even though they did take a different approach, it is still unmistakenly Portishead, yet with even more range. In hindsight, I can now appreciate their taking the chance of limiting their original hip-hop context for alternate instrumentation - it helped expand their sound and showed that they were more than just a one-trick pony.
Third is no different, and just as expansive and progressive. It takes several listens for it to sink in, but once it does you realize it is the same creatively throbbing pulsing rhythms and haunting vocals that you would expect from Portishead. Beth Gibbons vocal phrasing is as creative as ever and the music arrangements that complement her vocals so beautifully are just as compelling. Portishead's Third certainly stands as another solid document from a thoughtfully creative band that would probably not waste their time releasing sub-par work.
So, ignore all those that claim this album does not stand up to Portishead's high standard of quality and consistency - it most certainly does and shows that Portishead is a substantial work in progress that still has much to offer.