NEW PORTISHEAD ALBUM
 Eleven years in the making (their idea of progress was, according to producer Geoff Barrow, "one step forward, eight steps back") Portishead's new album, 'Third', not only drives something large, noisy and electronic through the coffee table of trip-hop (the middle class-friendly genre they once defined) it's quite easily better than anything they've ever done before (and we don't mean that in a 'this is definitely a return to form for the Manics' journalistic lie type of way!). Wire magazine will probably reference Krautrock in their review. We'll take their word for it. The band have certainly got their hands on whatever John Carpenter used to make the ace synthy noises for the soundtrack to 'Assault On Precinct 13' and Adrian Utley seems to have unlearned the guitar to spectacularly nihilistic effect, particularly his aggressive Joy Division-channelling attack on 'We Carry On'. The biggest revelation here is Beth Gibbons, long having ditched her creepy old lady voice for a pure, swooping tone that binds what could've ended up just a series of amazing noises on tracks like 'Machine Gun' and 'Silence' into songs of beauty and power and, by complete contrast, serves up a sugar sweet ukulele number, reminiscent of Sixties beach girls The Honeys on 'Deep Water'. And if you play the album on your iPod and go for a walk in the dark we guarantee it'll give you the willies. Bargain. Here's 'Machine Gun'. |
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