Editor Reviews:

Amazon.co.uk:
Portishead's Third has been a long time coming, the result of a lengthy creative torpor following 1997's dark, distinctly underrated album Portishead. Importantly, though, they've shaken it. While the core trio of Beth Gibbons, Geoff Barrow, and Adrian Utley remains, this is quite a different band to Portishead's 90s incarnation: gone is the slo-mo turntable scratching and smoky jazz feel, replaced by heavy, brooding rhythms, vintage-sounding electronics, and spindly guitar. Still present, though, is that sense of emotional fracture and deep gloom. "Silence" opens with a dense drum loop which suddenly falls away to reveal Gibbons' voice, cold but magnificent: "Wounded and afraid, inside my head/Falling through changes". "Nylon Smile", meanwhile, is a fine example of Third's occasional folksy edge, an acoustic song reminiscent of Leonard Cohen that, around its midpoint, lifts off on a propulsive electronic rhythm, Gibbons holding one clear, hard note as synthesisers bubble beneath. At times, it's a harsh and foreboding listen: the electronic drums of "Machine Gun" might put off the listener hoping for smooth dinner party fare. But Third is a brave and forward-thinking return, and one great enough to justify its lengthy gestation. --Louis Pattison

Rating : - The best album I've heard since 2005
Upon my first listen or two of Third, I didn't think it was that much of a progression from their debut, Dummy, nor their self-titled sophomore album. But I've come to realize I was ever so wrong.

The dark, sexy vibe that Portishead pulled off before is now just, well, dark. Extremely eerie, and very sinister. Their music used to sound like something you'd hear in a smoky and dingy underground club at 3 a.m. with others around smoking, talking, and maybe even dancing. Third sounds like something you'd listen to alone in a dark and musty basement of an abandoned building with one hanging light bulb flickering on and off.

There is definitely a Silver Apples influence here, and it makes me salivate. I love the Silver Apples, but Portishead takes their template and adds Beth's vocals and more developed songwriting, and creates something beyond anything the Silver Apples ever did.

It's difficult to try and describe the emotions this album evokes. It's dark, but it's not depressing. It's strangely comforting, but in a cold way.

I really want to point out some highlights, but I don't know what I'd exclude. Every single song on Third grows on me more and more upon further listens. I suppose I'll say that "Nylon Smile," "The Rip," "Plastic," "We Carry On," "Machine Gun," and "Threads" are the songs that particularly stand out to me.

Many times an album like this comes out that wears its influences on its sleeve, and its easy to downplay it because it will "never be like the original." But honestly, this blows much of its influences out of the water.