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| Artist: Portishead
Label: Universal
Category: Music
New (37) Used (5) from £6.25
Rating:  78 reviews
Sales Rank: 168
Media: Audio CD
Running Time: 49
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
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| Customer Reviews:
 dark and moody May 17, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
What a excellent album, in these dark and moody times we now have the soundtrack!
 ThURD May 16, 2008
3 out of 19 found this review helpful
This record is rubbish.I was more dissapointed with this record then i was with mogwais last album mr beast.Another over hyped album by a once great band.
After seeing all the five star reviews in the press i thought this record was going to be an absolute classic.Its not.The music is just cold and brittle.My advice is buy Beth gibbons solo record "out of season" instead .A thousand times better then this pap.
Anti climax. May 16, 2008
2 out of 21 found this review helpful
Quite simply self indulgent plop. Dissapointing after the long wait. Perhaps it would have been better to retire.
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.
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