From the outset of Portishead's appropriately titled third release, Third, the brooding English three-piece band lavishly defines the trip-hop genre, a down-tempo style with heavy drumbeats. Portishead creates an immersive and ambient experiment of sullen grooves backed by driving heartbeat rhythms, a haunting slew of eerie stringed instruments, dark saxophones, and vocalist Beth Gibbons's pleading descent into jazzy isolation.
This album is the third studio release from Portishead, following 1997's self-titled record and 1994's groundbreaking Dummy, and is easily as electrifying. Portishead has constructed an inescapable world of irresistible and matchless sounds that tug the listener in like a gravitational pull.
The opening track, "Silence," starts with a spoken note in Portuguese and translates as: "You get what you give, and you will only get what you deserve." As the quote fades, a hypnotic bass line accompanied by a retro, renegade drumbeat serves as prelude to two minutes of beautiful cello and exotic-sounding samples before the lonely singer begins to croon.
The track embodies a certain transcendent vibe that shapes the attitude for the duration of the album. The cryptic journey builds with intensity on "Hunter," in which a rhythmic pulse bellows beneath an enchanted guitar and Gibbons's pensive confession. The musical composition on "The Rip" serves as an eclectic mirror to the intimate lyrics, invoking a magical feeling as the singer admits, "White horses, they will take me away/ And my tenderness I feel/ Will send the dark underneath."
While the first few cuts on Third succeed in soothing and arousing the senses, "We Carry On" and "Machine Gun" contend with murky, hymns and a forward-driving march offering a precise balance to the rest of record. The last track, "Threads," ranges from quiet to loud groove as Gibbons cries of her affliction: "I'm always, so unsure." The piece finally fades out, leaving a rebellious saxophone repeatedly sounding off like a Viking battle horn.
Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley are the longtime contributors to Portishead, providing the sampling, programming, and instrumentation for each of the band's records. Each song on Third is a carefully constructed work of subtle perfection having its own very unique and independent form of existence. It is quite obvious that in the seemingly long hiatus from the band's last record, Barrow and company have been hard at work painting musical portraits that are as alive and breathing as they are profound and fulfilling.
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