CD Review: Portishead: Third

Portishead is easily one of my favorite bands. They are one of the last ones on my list of "people to see in concert before I die". They make such groovy, trip-hop music that they are often credited for defining the genre."Dummy" was an instant classic coming out of the gate and the self-titled second album was no slouch, either. Watching the "Portishead:Live" DVD in full surround just adds to the appreciation of the way they can engineer samples, hip-hop drums, spaghetti western guitars and Beth Gibbons' haunting voice to make a beautiful sadness creep into your ears.So us diehard fans were left to wait 10 years before another album, and "3rd" was it. I have to be honest, though: it is abit disappointing. I'm a grown-up enough music fan to know not to expect every album by a defining artist to be as good as the last (everything Jewel did after "Pieces"), or to sound exactly as they used to (a la Metallica's short-hair days), but with 10 years in between albums you have to expect SOMETHING.

Portishead-head Mike Utley has re-crafted their sound to be more rock-oriented yet heavy on noise samples at the same time. Listening to many of the tracks reminded me of hearing a good, heavy rock song on the radio being broken up by static and a jazz station interrupting on the same frequency. Not even Beth Gibbons' sorrowful, emotional vocals could lush me into enjoying the total package.The lyrical quality and subject matter seemed to take a back seat in this album as opposed to meshing perfectly in and out of the beats as in the previous two.

I listened to the "Third" about 10 times to make sure that I wasn't just being too picky. It isn't a horribly bad CD or anything like that, but if I was trying to get someone into Portishead I would definitely not pick this CD first or second for them to listen to. Had this been another band, I probably would have enjoyed it a little more. Even in their sorrow, Portishead managed to get you into a groove and even do a little bit of head-bobbing. Not so much on "Third". This album seems to focus on the disjointedness of broken relationships as opposed to going with the flow of your emotions.