|
| Third | 
 enlarge | Artist: Portishead
Label: Universal
Category: Music
List Price: £16.99
Buy Used: £6.48
You Save: £10.51 (62%)
New (30) from £6.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  74 reviews
Sales Rank: 209
Media: Audio CD
Running Time: 49 minutes
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.4
UPC: 602517640139
EAN: 0602517640139
ASIN: B0014C2BL4
Release Date: April 28, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW - Sealed IMPORT!! -
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Portishead - Third May 15, 2008
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
I'll start this review with a) a confession and b) a confession.
a) I have never heard Portishead's self-titled second album. I'll rectify this sometime soon.
b) I'm somewhat wary about writing my first online music review and giving the subject the maximum score available. But, my god, this record deserves it.
This is something that I've been contemplating for a while now. What makes an album great? Does every track have to be excellent? Or does it simply have to take you on a great journey? Or must it do both?
The signs point to the third answer. And the third answer is fitting of Third.
I can only imagine how long the 11 years since their last studio album have seemed to the Portishead faithful. Mostly because in 1997 I hadn't even discovered Blur yet. But it's most certainly been worth it.
Perhaps the most important thing to write here is this: Third WILL split opinions. And it has. But all it takes to love it is time. And a willingness to be uncomfortable.
To say that the record is bleak is to do it a disservice. I'd much rather call it pessimistic. This is Portishead on the march to an uncertain destination (personified by We Carry On). Indeed, the overall message of the album is unclear. It seems to have songs dealing with all the standard issues music can deal with. Paranoia (Hunter), love (Nylon Smile), death (The Rip), it's all here and it's all beautiful.
My first experience with this work was Portishead's recent appearance on Later with Jools Holland. Ever since that show, the drumbeat of Machine Gun has been firmly burnt into my brain, like the Arctic Monkeys' Fake Tales of San Francisco before it. On repeated listens, I'm starting to hear connections with Europe's The Final Countdown (because The Terminator theme was too obvious to mention), but don't let that put you off. There's Kraftwerk in there too
The writers of the negative reviews that can be found on Amazon clearly didn't listen to The Rip, a magnificent eulogy. I'm tempted to call it Track of the Year, but that would be too hasty of me. Let me simply say this: it's the most beautiful thing Portishead have ever created. Considering that the same group have given us the likes of Glory Box and Only You, that's quite an achievement.
So what of the `journey' that I mentioned at the start of this review? I'd liken it to The Sopranos. It's a journey that's simply too long and involving for one piece of art to show all of it. But one thing's for sure. I can't wait to see where they go next.
A triumph and a landmark May 15, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
It's interesting to see longtime Portishead fans criticising "Third". I can't help thinking that maybe the album isn't aimed at Portishead fans. As someone clueless about "trip-hop" and someone entirely new to Portishead, I can hopefully deliver a fairly impartial verdict: it's brilliant. It's bleak, it's dark (more so than any record I own), and it's not for everyone. It sounds designed for headphones (good headphones), for solitary listening. It's one of those difficult, thoughtful, artful experiences that rock music throws up every decade or so.
I don't think I can pigeonhole "Third" into any category. Perhaps "Third" is Portishead's innovative attempt to join that other head - Radiohead - in a terrifying hydra of genre-defying mope-rock. Unpredictable, intense, discombobulating, "Third" has the qualities of Radiohead's darkest and most pioneering work. It's no surprise that Radiohead have already covered "The Rip" in recent soundchecks. Anyone who liked "Kid A" or "Amnesiac" should get this now. And vice versa. Like Radiohead, Portishead tap into the collective unease of human beings in an over-industrialised age of plastic, machine guns and indifference.
 Best one yet May 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I own the previous albums and the common feature of both is that there are some truly great and timeless songs on both, but the rest of the albums is only average.
With their latest offering, we again get some great tracks (on a par with Mysterons, Roads, Sour Times etc), but the overall standard is higher than the previous albums and, as a result, Third is an album I will be able to listen to again and again in the future, something I've struggled doing with the other two.
The album starts off with a belter. Silence is on a par with the previous openers, with its high tempo beats, strings and guitar backing.
The next two, Hunter and Nylon Smile, are two of the weakest tracks that I would call fillers. The former is slow and quite dull which climaxes at the end but it's not really enough. Nylon Smile is better with its African sounding drums and Asian strings.
The Rip is one of the album's four great tracks. Eighties sounding synthesizers with Gibbons' trademark vocals provide a melancholy feel with a great ending.
Plastic is classic Portishead and could easily feel at home on one of the earlier albums. There's a bizarre knocking sound in the background that works brilliantly. It's the kind of innovative production we come to expect from Portishead.
We Carry On is my favourite, probably of all Portishead's tracks. A fast stuttering beat, alarm-sounding guitars and a real sense of urgency make this one of the few tracks that has blown me a way in recent months.
Deep Water is an awful barbershop song that really doesn't belong here.
Machine Gun is one of those love it or hate it songs. I personally find the drums too heavy and actually find it irritating. It ends well though. As someone said, it sounds like something from the Terminator films.
Small and Magic Doors are both useful additions to the album, and the closing track, Threads, is the fourth of the 5-star tracks and a fitting ending to the album. It's not dissimilar to the closing track on their debut album, Glory box, and every bit as good. A cool mellow track with those very Portishead-esqe guitars and a simple yet effective beat.
Well worth the wait. May 11, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This will be no long rant. Buy this album and keep playing it. After a few spins you won't be able to turn it off. In a word, brilliant.
The very definition of the word 'grower' May 10, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
When I first spun up this album I have to admit I was disappointed. After such a long gap, thoughts of a radical change of direction are furthest from the listener's mind- we just want to be back in that student bedroom in 1997 listening to "Elysium" whilst we get stoned out of our minds with our campus buddy. And I fell into this trap instantly.
After hearing "Machine Gun" I was intrigued enough to want to recreate the 90s by being able to sit down and listen to a new Portishead album. That was an experience in itself.
"What is this?!?" I asked myself- and you should know I'm no stranger to disjointed 'uncomfortable' music, being a fan of the likes of Autechre, Aphex, Joy Division, Zappa- and I felt a little disappointed. I assigned it 3 stars in my head, but thought I was being generous. I found it even more paranoid, fractured and the soundtrack to the bleakness going on in Gibbons' tortured mind than their last one- and whilst I was in awe of this, I wasn't getting that so bleak it lifts you up vibe at all.
But I persisted, and on about the third listen it came alive. In horribly vivid black and white, like Bergman on acid. There it all was: the unmistakable Portishead sound- buried, certainly, but it was there under the rubble; this was Portishead in the 21st century- the Dark in the darkest of times; the suffering of man, the encroaching paranoia; the suffocating hopelessness that threatens to engulf us all if we let it; but also there is fight, there is anger- this is a militant record.
A more uncomfortable and yet rewarding listening experience cannot be found at the moment. It is this paradox that makes "Third" a serious contender for album of the year already, and perhaps the most successful 'comeback album' of any band in the last couple of decades, arguably.
My favourite tracks are "Silence", "The Rip", "Plastic"; "Machine Gun" and "Magic Doors".
If you want something to put on whilst you and your wife entertain your friends, this is not it. If you want something that sums up the times, leaves you a little disturbed and exhilarated, then THIS IS IT.
Half a star deducted for the slightly-too-quirky/irrelevant "Deep Water". So I'm really giving it 4.5, even though I can't on Amazon.
|
|
|
Learn how to have your own
Amazon Shop
Travel Maps and Guides
zeugma
| | Holiday Travel |
alpharooms.com for cheap holiday deals in spain and worldwide
Disneyland Paris for a great family holiday or short break.
Holday Cottages throughout Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland and France with Cottages4you
Hilton - need we say more, you will find Hilton Hotels in most areas throughout Britain, in cities and in the countryside.
Don't forget Travel Insurance
Airport Parking
|
|
|
|
