Review: Is this new Portishead mediocre at best?

April 23, 2008

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The new Portishead album (’Third’) is getting fairly mixed/mediocre reviews and I have only heard it once through via a leak someone played me in America. But I really liked it on that sole listen. And it struck me as the kind of album you probably need to live with to really appreciate. I didn’t like the single, ‘Machine Gun’ on first listen but I think it’s rather deadly now. Below, you’ll see a webcast that the band have done and again, I think the songs sound great. Perhaps reviewers are just giving them a hard time because (a) it took them ten years and (b) it works against the expectations of what a Portishead album ’should’ be and that’s what I, personally, love seeing bands do - giving people something different than they expected. Unfortunately, that’s a rare occurence these days.

I still have to hear the album properly, I guess. I may come back and admit the critics were right but I hope they’re not…