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Third | 
| Artist: Portishead
Label: Mercury
Category: Music
List Price: $13.98
Buy New: $7.14
You Save: $6.84 (49%)
New (53) Used (13) from $7.14
Avg. Customer Rating:  147 reviews
Sales Rank: 75
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 001114102
UPC: 602517664005
EAN: 0602517664005
ASIN: B0016HNOXQ
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
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| Tracks:
| • | Silence | | • | Hunter | | • | Nylon Smile | | • | The Rip | | • | Plastic | | • | We Carry On | | • | Deep Water | | • | Machine Gun | | • | Small | | • | Magic Doors | | • | Threads |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk
Portishead's Third has been a long time coming, the result of a lengthy creative torpor 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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 142 more reviews...
 Stick with it, kids.. July 25, 2008
Okay, I pre-ordered this one and was going to review it almost instantly... I'm so very glad I didn't. At first, with the (Portugese?) opening and off-center bass, you realize that there's no way this is going to sound like their previous stuff (in ways both good and potentially bad), but go with it - the more attention you give it, the more you can hear. The way certain songs don't seem to flow into the next one seems to be offset by the way other songs do - almost like a suite of sorts later in the album that seems almost perfectly suited for (no idea if I can say this on Amazon or not, but I'm copying this and re-pasting it just in case I get censored) as music for taking "medicine" to.
Paying attention to the sounds pays off - I swear to (insert deity of choice here) that the first round of percussion on "Machine Gun" sounds in a way softer than the rest of it, on "Small", half of the keyboard (if that's what it is) strokes sound deliberately fudged, "The Rip" is, hands down, one of the most, if not the most beautiful song that they've ever done (I'd press "repeat" 2 or 3 times each time I played the CD when I first got it, and seems, as well, almost tailor-made for a KCRW late morning playlist) and, going back to "Machine Gun", the sounds at the end are bugging me because I can't figure out what obscure late 70's/early 80's movie they remind me of... but in a good way - like there was this movie that I wrote off because I couldn't quite grasp all of the themes at the time I saw it.
I guess that's probably the best analogy for the album in general as well - don't dismiss it and it will grow on you like most albums you end up never wanting to live without.
But then, since both of my boom-generation parents like Portishead, it might be genetic as well.
Great Album! July 25, 2008
only one thing to say remember to play this album as a 45 not a 33 sounds silly but thats how they set it up...
Converting the Unconverted July 23, 2008
This is a genuinely avant-garde album, with all kinds of unexpected twists and turns. It is not tuneful the way of trip hop--this album is more "out there."
I didn't like their earlier records all that much, they didn't seem to do "tuneful" trip hop as well as, say, Morcheeba, and the odd touches they threw in struck me as relatively tame.
Very little about this records is tame. I wouldn't recommend this one for everyone, but if your musical tastes are edgy, this is definitely worth checking out.
A nice and refreshing listen. July 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
2008 could not have possibly been a better time for me to hear a new Portishead album. My fandom is probably bigger than it's ever been before and the fact that it does not repeat the classic formula via crowd pleasing makes it all the more engaging a listen. And the album doesn't even sound that un-Portishead in the first place. It's possibly not the strongest album they've released yet but there's plenty of quality material to be found here.
And it's not like the songs themselves sound individually the same either. You get "We Carry On," possibly their most dancefloor ready song ever. And then it follows right up with the lo-fi field recording sound of "Deep Water" and the fantastic drum-machine centered "Machine Gun," which fits the violent theme of the lyrics just perfectly. It's one of their greatest songs and total brilliance. Also, some of these songs end where they seem like they wouldn't or shouldn't. You expect Gibbons to sing more on "Nylon Smile" or the music to continue on "Silence" at first instead of their abrupt endings.
This record is something truly creative and worth investing in if you have any taste for the group. I mean, 11 years really has paid off here! Sure I'd like those traditional trip-hop songs but I think in the end that "Third" is more rewarding than that ever could have been.
Striking July 20, 2008
Eleven years is a long time between releases. It's been awhile since their albums were in heavy rotation on my playlist, but this sounds just as good if not better than anything they've out out. I can't understand people waiting eleven years and then being disappointed that the new album is not exactly like the last one. Things change, I guess a lot of people don't, or are in denial. Anyway, you would recognize this as a Portishead album immediately on hearing, and it's new, different, and good.
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