ARTIST: Portishead
TITLE: 3
RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2008
WEB DEBUT: March 6, 2008
ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: On 3 Portishead have achieved something many freshly invigorated bands shoot for and miss after they’ve recovered from their sophomore slump (even if it took them longer than most to bounce back): a wide-ranging album that’s still comfortingly familiar, the gloomy gamine you initially fell for now sporting a few seemingly out-of-character frocks. Many of Portishead’s new tracks could never be mistaken for the work of their blunted copyists, the spawn of a sound as unfortunately pernicious as the Vedder yarl or Brian Setzer’s love of the greatest generation. (Not the Bristolians’ fault, obviously.) But Beth Gibbons’ inimitably lovesickened voice and the band’s permanent frown mean old fans won’t be worrying they downloaded the wrong album. And though some might gripe the trio is stuck in a moody rut, really, who was waiting for the first sunny entry in the Portishead discography?
That said–and it’s not entirely surprising if you’ve been following the group’s individual breadcrumb trails during its long downtime–there are a few overtures toward the pastoral on 3 like “Deep Water,” a sketch for banjo and a murmuring Gibbons playing drowsy English folk princess chilling lakeside rather than dread soul siren cruising noir cityscapes. That said, “Deep Water” is followed by “Machine Gun,” which ditches the crackling turntable loops of old for grimy, staccato electro rhythms that shoot holes in the walls of your chill out room. Nothing on 3 is as violent as the band’s been hinting during the album’s long, on-stage coming out party, but it’s certainly raw and uneasy, often in unexpected ways.
The Krautrock tinge I heard when the band debuted several new tunes at All Tomorrow’s Parties is only an intermittent influence on 3, though the motorik break/bass combo on “Silence” is such an Ege Bamyasi dead-ringer that even a seasoned sonic pasticheur (and Can fan) like James Murphy would blush, and the beat on “Nylon Smile” has a certain tribal quality that makes me think of hirsute experimental rockers of indeterminate nationality.
But here’s where these one-listen verdicts become unfair to pop-unfriendly albums not designed to reveal the rightness/wrongness of their shape on first (or fourth, in this case) spin: despite digging the band’s expanded vision, my initial reaction was actually a slight disappointment that they held back from pushing entirely past the Portishead of “Sour Times” and into the 21st-century sound 3 approaches in its best moments. (Even if that “21st-century” sound is ironically rooted in the ’70s and ’80s.) And yet while the rhythmic rewrites are the album’s most welcome development, there are plenty of tweaks to the group’s well-worn groove, the kind of subtleties that take longer to sink in (or even notice). The trudging “Hunter” moves likes the Portishead’s old bad trips, but the creepy library record synths are new, as is the guitar that spins pensive spiderwebs not dissimilar to (Gibbons faves) Talk Talk or that old Slint black magic. In a few months, even 3’s throwbacks will likely prove seductive for reasons beyond ’90s nostalgia.
Wait…Portishead had a sophomore slump? I must have missed that.
a certain tribal quality that makes me think of hirsute experimental rockers of indeterminate nationality
Absolutely beautiful.
wow, it’s amazing. does silence end abruptly deliberately?
boo…I’m having trouble finding this through all my usual connections.
Waiting for the CD release here, but glad to hear it’s plenty good, if not entirely surprising.
@Lucas Jensen: Good question–who among us disagrees that the s/t record was superior to Dummy in almost every way? And why/how?
@BenRad: Yeah, what’s up with that? Could someone put this on Usenet or the Pirate Bay, pls? Or send me the link to wherever this can be found.
@tigerpop: I really like both of their first two records — both of which have, Hooverphonic and their ilk notwithstanding, aged just fine. What I don’t get is the insistence by some people that their second record sounded exactly like their first.
[www.mediafire.com]
Really looking forward to this one. It’s been too long since we’ve had new Portishead.
I think I’ll listen to that self-titled disc on the way home from work, now.
Must. Listen. Now.
@natepatrin: I think the second record is all around a little rougher around the edges and maybe even less catchy and all the better for it. That is one spooky album. They emulated the United States of America for Pete’s sake. That’s just rad.
Re: all the smirky calling-out here about Jess’s “sophomore slump” line….
Can we agree that each of the first two Portishead records is a Rorschach test for what kind of music fan you are — pop vs. avant-garde — and leave it at that? I don’t mind anyone preferring Portishead to Dummy, but there’s nothing immutable or inarguable about the superiority of the “darker, weirder” record over the catchier one.
Love n’ glory boxes,
A catchy-loving guy
I found it…and I don’t know, maybe I’m just not in the mood. Sounds disjointed, noisy, not all that great.
But how does it compare to the Rustin’ Man collaboration?
Very interesting album… gone are the tired cliches of what is the now defunct genre of ” trip-hop”. drums are less prominent in the mix and are often doubled in tempo, giving a very different synergy to the song arrangements. Where old portishead material was usually set in the 90 BPM’s, we get a few numbers in the +120 BPM’s here. Also some new influences, krautrock has been mentioned but i also get a certain industrial dare i say almost techno vibe on tracks like ‘we carry on’ and pure folk in other parts like the ’small’ intro. There is a wider range on 3rd, yet it manages to stay coherant and stay true to the P identity. The one criticism i will make is the mixing does sound rather ‘demo-ish’ and unmastered, but that’s probably voluntarily, afterall they did define the term lo-fi in the 90’s…
Portishead fill a very specific niche in my listening habits and I couldn’t be more thrilled that they’re finally putting another record out.
@tigerpop et al: Sour Times is probably a pretty fantastic song if you haven’t heard it a couple thousand times. Add that to Glory Box, It Could Be Sweet, Wandering Star, and (well I like it) Roads, and voila, I think you have several highs higher than Humming.
But, that’s just my opinion.
While I find it extremely hard to get excited about anything Portishead do, I’ll do a Maxim and put my money on this being at least as good as anything else they’ve done. They’re a class act and I don’t expect anything less than top-notch craftsmanship from them.
The album is trickling through the pipeline even as I write this.
I’m certain I’ll like it as and when I put it on.