CD Reviews

Portishead

Third | Island

By MATT PARISH | April 22, 2008

3.0 Stars

David Lynch took back his spooky, crackly beats and the band replaced them with a pile of electronics and rickety, minimalist percussion to craft this ultra-depressing ode to watching it all slip away. Listening to the long-awaited curveball that is Third is like watching rotten harbor debris, scavenger sea gulls, and massive tankers float by. “Nylon Smile” melds a repetitive hand drum with backwards guitar warbles as a bed for Beth Gibbons to deliver a helpless goodbye: “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you/And I don’t know what I’ll do without you.” It’s an empty, bewildered feeling that pervades the entire album. “The Rip” follows, twisting a wilting guitar into a chorus of soul-crushing synth tones oozing up from the buried scores of John Carpenter films. They’d sound like an ’80s after-school special if it weren’t for the drugged one-two beat and Gibbons’s near-death whispers. Anyone expecting a return to the slick cinemafunk of ’90s Portishead will be taken aback by Third, but though the album never reaches the eureka moments of old, it’s a welcome step into new territory and a more than satisfying downer dose to set against the onset of sunny days and ice cream.

Related: Dreaming of celluloid, Dancing in the Dark, Origin of species, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Culture and Lifestyle, Food and Cooking, Foods, More

Comments

Add a Comment

view all

[ 11/25 ] "Stainless: Industrial Dance Night" @ Zuzu

[ 11/25 ] Ellen O’Brien @ M Bar & Lounge

[ 11/25 ] Tod Duarte Band @ Steve’s Backstage Pass

[ 11/25 ] "Toe Jamm" @ Dodge Street Bar & Grill

[ 11/25 ] Hugh McGowan @ Toad

ARTICLES BY MATT PARISH

SWEET SORROW | November 11, 2009
Everybody loves a tidy ending. Episodes of Seinfeld , fireworks finales, a sturdy hem at the base of a pant leg — these things give us faith that the designer knew what he was doing.

THE EVIL DEAF | November 05, 2009
Inside the dusty corner room of a dungeon-like warehouse basement, Karl Giesing dumps out a bag full of pedals, samplers, grimy cables, and homemade synth boxes. Their functionality seems questionable.

DREAR LEADERS | October 27, 2009
On the Black Heart Procession’s first visit to Boston, back in ’98, the duo hunched on chairs at the Middle East downstairs surrounded by equipment — keyboards, guitars, a musical saw, an array of percussion.

RHYTHM QUEENS | October 21, 2009
It’s a chilly Monday afternoon, and at the head of the lawn in front of the Christian Science Center, Zili Misik are starting soundcheck, bear-hugging their instruments to keep them warm.

AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE | October 15, 2009
Appreciation of Converge is one of those things that comes after you stop trying too hard, like driving stick without stalling at the red lights.

See all articles by: MATT PARISH

Most Viewed

Most Emailed

WE'RE KILLING THE OCEANS
I meet world-renowned undersea photojournalist Brian Skerry at Legal Seafoods, across from the New England Aquarium, where he's the explorer in residence. He orders a chicken Caesar salad.

REVIEW: THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON
Chris Weitz comes on board to direct Twilight ’s hotly awaited sequel, New Moon , but the second bite doesn’t sate quite like the first. Bella (Kristen Stewart) celebrates her 18th birthday with vampire boyfriend Edward (Robert Pattinson); when she gets a paper cut at the party.

REVIEW: THE ROAD
John Hillcoat doesn't stray from Cormac McCarthy's Road For those who found the Coen Brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men too lighthearted, John Hillcoat's relentlessly faithful version of the author's post-apocalyptic Pulitzer-winning novel might hit the spot.

MISSING PERSONS SINGER DALE BOZZIO JAILED
Missing Persons singer Dale Bozzio is sitting in an Ossipee, New Hampshire, jail after dropping her appeal of a March animal-cruelty conviction.

REVIEW: CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2
You're standing in an elevator with men wearing bulletproof vests and wielding machine guns. "No Russian," the leader reminds you, as the doors open to reveal a line of persons waiting at the airport security gate.

WE'RE KILLING THE OCEANS
I meet world-renowned undersea photojournalist Brian Skerry at Legal Seafoods, across from the New England Aquarium, where he's the explorer in residence. He orders a chicken Caesar salad.

GLENN BECK'S UNHINGED SWEATER SAGA
Hello, America. A special Glenn Beck Program tonight: I'm speaking to you from somewhere in the North Pole, and let me tell you [adopts cartoonish yokel voice with rubbery exaggerated shiver] it is coooooooold up here.

COAKLEY TAKES A STAND
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley this week separated herself from the gang of essentially like-minded candidates seeking to fill Senator Ted Kennedy's Washington seat by rejecting the US House of Representatives compromise that traded approval of a health-care-reform bill for greater restrictions to abortion access. Good for Coakley.

GROUP EFFORT
If you're inclined to play punk rock, chances are you've got a self-esteem problem. It's not an æsthetic that attracts the well-adjusted. Exhibit A: Mark Lind. As bassist and frontman of the Ducky Boys, he's opened for Rancid, U.S. Bombs, and Flogging Molly.

KENNEDY, CATHOLIC CHURCH, AND POLITICS OF COMPROMISE
US Representative Patrick Kennedy's confrontation with Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin over abortion and health-care reform has soaked up quite a bit of ink.

HOT TOPICS

Thomas Quasthoff , Daft Punk , Ben Heppner , Bob Dylan , James Levine , Keith Fullerton Whitman , Major League Baseball , Bruce Springsteen , Bob Mould , Trent Reznor

CD Reviews

Portishead

Swollen Members | Armed to the Teeth

Them Crooked Vultures | Them Crooked Vultures

Annie | Don't Stop

AC-DC | Backtracks

Pink Martini | Splendor in the Grass