Portishead - Third (2008)

Portishead - Third (2008)

Portishead are west country denizens Beth Gibbons, Adrian Utley and Geoff Barrow. The group formed in 1991 and (very surprisingly!) this is their third studio album.

Third will be released on CD on April 28th.

Yap. It's here. At last! The very imaginatively-titled third album from the illustrious Bristolites, whose 1994 debut "Dummy" broke trip-hop all over the world with its collision of the artful, the haunting and the melancholy. A beautiful fucked up fusion of torch song, dark atmospherics and slow-slow hip-hop beats.

Coming a full ten years after their last album, the live document 'PNYC', this record sees them going back to the source, digging in the crates for weird and wonderful samples from prog rock, free jazz, techno, industrial and funk on which to work their twisted magic, as well as incorporating some of the folk influence that pervades frontwoman Beth Gibbons' solo work.

Portishead's Third has been a long time coming, the result of a lengthy creative topor following 1997's dark, distinctly underrated album Portishead. Importantly, though, they've shaken it.

While the core trio of Beth Gibbons, Geoff Barrow, and Adrian Utley remains, this is quite a different band to Portishead's 90s incarnation: gone is the slo-mo turntable scratching and smoky jazz feel, replaced by heavy, brooding rhythms, vintage-sounding electronics, and spindly guitar.

Still present, though, is that sense of emotional fracture and deep gloom.

"Silence" opens with a dense drum loop which suddenly falls away to reveal Gibbons' voice, cold but magnificent: "Wounded and afraid, inside my head/Falling through changes".

"Nylon Smile", meanwhile, is a fine example of Third's occasional folksy edge, an acoustic song reminiscent of Leonard Cohen that, around its midpoint, lifts off on a propulsive electronic rhythm, Gibbons holding one clear, hard note as synthesisers bubble beneath.

At times, it's a harsh and foreboding listen: the electronic drums of "Machine Gun" might put off the listener hoping for smooth dinner party fare. But Third is a brave and forward-thinking return, and one great enough to justify its lengthy gestation.

-Louis Pattison

Tracklisting

1. Silence

2. Hunter

3. Nylon Smile

4. The Rip

5. Plastic

6. We Carry On

7. Deep Water

8. Machine Gun

9. Small

10. Magic Doors

11. Threads

Check em here:

http://www.myspace.com/PORTISHEADALBUM3

Here be third:

http://rapidshare.com/files/10.....-cdrip.zip

Mirror;
http://rapidshare.com/files/99....._2008_.zip

Thanks to the original poster

http://stupidd.blogspot.com/

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