The New Classics #34: Third, Portishead

Title: Third
Artist: Portishead
Year: 2008
Label: Island

[Note: I apologize for the slight delay in updates this week. Life got in the way of blogging for a few days. Portishead's Third is worth the wait, though. It took ten years to get released, so perhaps the delay was appropriate.]

There are few scarier words to a music fan than "extended hiatus." As soon as a band's members start talking about a need for "time apart," to "work on solo projects" or anything like that, you know your favorite band is toast. "Hiatus" is almost always code for personality conflicts, jostling egos and, more often than not, the inevitable dissolution of the band. If the group does eventually get back together to record new music, the results are virtually always sub-par and disappointing. This is the curse of the "reunion tour," as bands discover that any magic that was there to begin with has been skittered away by time and distance. So, what do we make of the Bristol-based trio Portishead? After releasing their masterful debut, Dummy, in 1994, they only managed a tepid second album before, sure enough, going on hiatus for the next ten years. Written off and all but forgotten by everyone, they defied all the odds in 2008 by returning with Third, a dark, tumultuous record that threatened to usurp Dummy as Portishead's best release.

Fans of Portishead's work from the 1990s were rather shocked when they first heard Third. Instead of the lush, romantic, smokey Dummy, which defined the trip-hop scene, this new album was twisted and sick, dominated by doubt, confusion and dread. The first single, "Machine Gun," is still eye-opening, with its unrelenting, rough electronics and icy reverb. The total effect of "Machine Gun" is similar to being hit in the head with something heavy, over and over again. Beth Gibbons' voice is a far cry from the mystery and swagger of 1990s Portishead, giving way to a piercing, clear wail that sounds lost amid the claustrophobic musical backdrop. The album's centerpiece, "We Carry On," is just as merciless. Cavernous drums and a seasick keyboard line combine to create a hypnotic, uneasy groove, owing much to krautrock bands like Neu! and Kraftwerk. However, rather than creating something mechanical and distant, "We Carry On" is frighteningly pained and human, with Gibbons pleading "the pace of time, I can't survive, it's grinding down the view."

So much of Third simply sounds nauseous. From the eerie electronic squiggles at the beginning of "Nylon Smile" to the woozy tempos of "Plastic," the album never sounds at peace. It writhes and churns, occasionally shifting dramatically in tone and mood, even within the same song. Adrian Utley's guitar work, previously limited to spidery spy themes, is given much more to do on Third, adding both texture and sporadic bursts of violent, jarring noise. Multi-instrumentalist and krautrock fanatic Geoff Barrow crafts rolling waves of drums to accentuate the pervasive keyboards. This uneasy musical backdrop underlines Gibbons' unstable lyrics. The album's opening verse speaks of being "wounded and afraid inside my head," while "Magic Doors" continues to look inward, saying "I have tried to find the words to describe this sense absurd, try to resist my thoughts, but I can't lie." Third's lyrics are absolutely overrun with self-doubt and sadness, perhaps most affectingly during "Nylon Smile," featuring a chorus of "I don't know what I've done to deserve you and I don't know what I'd do without you." There's an undercurrent of relationship tension throughout the album, but reading too much into this element seems dangerous. As Gibbons says on "Machine Gun," "now I realize I'm only for me."

Amid all this torment lies "Deep Water," a short, ukulele-driven tune and the gorgeous "The Rip," the two eyes of the hurricane that is Third. These are the only points during the album that offer any form of calm or comfort. Yet, for all its fragile beauty, "The Rip" is just as mentally ill as the rest, with Gibbons' flat, emotionless statement that "through the glory of life, I will scatter on the floor." The album ends with "Threads," which actually resurrects the shattered guitar of Dummy before blowing everything away with massive, electronic bellowing, which continues to echo over the last minute of the song, long after the rest of the music is silent. For a band that hadn't released an album in eleven years, these blasts of noise still sound like a staggering statement of intent. Portishead returned in the last years of the 2000s, reborn as avant-garde art-rockers, blowing away their past as trip-hop standard bearers. There wasn't anything that sounded remotely like Third when it came out. With its rhythmic complexities, harrowing emotions and powerfully feminine voice, Third has no precedents and no discernible descendants. We'll just have to see what Portishead does next and hope it doesn't take another decade before we find out.

Next up on The New Classics: The Moon & Antarctica, Modest Mouse