Portishead Issue #36

Third (Island/Mercury)

By John S.W. MacDonald
Published: August 1st, 2008 | 10:10am

It has been a busy decade. Two skyscrapers collapsed, two elections were contested, America fought two wars, Britney had two kids. Yet Portishead, ensconced in the relative serenity of Bristol, England, had the gall to lounge about and make zero records — zip, zilch, nada — nothing since 1998's live album, Roseland NYC. While the trio twittered about, trip-hop — the genre Portishead practically invented with their 1994 debut, Dummy — quietly went the way of the dodo.

Now, finally, inexorably — amid a barrage of speculation—Third arrives. And, well, all is forgiven. Portishead have handed us a near brilliant record. Third wisely excises the "hop" from "trip-hop," focusing instead on all that's strange, frightening, and dissonant in their music. Their signature beat-heavy ballads have largely been left behind. Third is the most uncompromising and in accessible record of the band's career. There's nothing nostalgic in these 11 tracks — and that's a good thing.

Multi-instrumentalists Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley's newfound penchant for noisy, disjointed soundscapes is on full display in the album's first single, "Machine Gun." The track is an unrelenting barrage of industrial percussion — like two drum samples from Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine fighting over a drug corner in West Baltimore. It's illustrative of the album as a whole that Third’s most percussive track is also its most jarring — and one of its best.

The only issue — the "near" in "near brilliant" — is Beth Gibbons herself. Her voice is as stunning as ever, but Third seems to have less room, or need, for it. With Barrow and Utley's interests shifting away from sultry hip-hop to kraut-rock and outré psychedelia, Gibbons' voice is denied those deep, warm pockets it needs to settle in and take hold. Instead, her voice is too often exposed, allowing the merciless self-doubt in Gibbons’ lyrics to over-ripen and sour — particularly on album closer "Threads."

But ultimately, these are minor quibbles. (And anyway, Gibbons and her ukulele do much to lighten things up with her minute-long self-parody, "Deep Water.") Third is, in fact, a minor miracle — a record that neatly reconciles Portishead's trip-hop past with its trip-whatever future. From one decade to the next …