Customer Reviews
Awful Awful Awful. - By: C. Fletcher, 26 Aug 2008 
As you might guess from the title, I don't like this one bit. Loved their first two albums, & the livein New York CD, & have been waiting for this third album for years. But it is awful to the point where I can't listen to it. It's like Eric Morecambe said - all the notes are there, but not necessarilyin the right order. It gives me a headache every time I turn it on. What were you thinking Beth? Look out my copy on Amazon Marketplace! Erm, it's brilliant, you must buy it...
The gap between releases shows.... - By: James Belton, 25 Aug 2008 
We all know & love 'Dummy' & even quite liked the difficult second self-titled album but then we had to wait a long time for the 'Third' to show up - & I think that's it's problem.
Any good band should progress over time & change their sound & Portishead have obviously done soin the years they have been away. Trouble is, we were all expecting something Dummy-esque from Third but having missed out on the evolution got an album which is pretty far from it.
Some of the tracks are very hard to listen to (Machine Gun being the worst), others are fairly non-offensive yet ordinary & one or two are real gems & I wish they lasted a bit longer.
I think that if I had heard the evolution from 'Portishead' to 'Third' I'd be more forgiving but this is so different (and hence I am so disappointed by it) that I can only give it 2 stars & hope that the next album is not quite so far away, eitherin time or sound.
Not exactly easy listening - By: Josh W, 22 Aug 2008 
Strange, bleak, dark & slightly unsettling. Haunting vocals as per usual, but none of the commercial friendly drum & bass beats of the earlier Dummy album. More noise - it made me question whether my stereo was faulty (it wasn't!). The last couple of tracks turning to rock. Some folk rock sounding stuff, with others (Machine Gun) sounding like it's come straight from one of the early Terminator films.
Not worth the wait - By: chris widgery, 19 Aug 2008 Fine, Dummy was so cutting edge that it sounded horribly dated horribly quickly. But it was wonderful. This isn't. It's harsher, more electronic. Not necessarily a problemin itself. Only they forgot to write any songs. They've gone all Radiohead - I imagine they felt they were too popular so decided to disappear up their own back passage to show how muso & serious they are. Disappointing.
Not so good - By: Jules 77, 13 Aug 2008 I've been waiting some time for their third album to come out, I seem to remember their website said they were recording & it would be out soon - this wasin the late 90s. Anyway after a longer wait eventually there it was. First listen - hmm, give it another go - is it a grower? Not so sure. After a bit of a break & a "third" listen I, unfortunately, have to say it's not a good album. There is virtually nothing here that makes me want to listen again. Fellow Bristolian Tricky has also released an album this year & while he's developed different styles throughout his career I feel his music has always stayed fresh. Portishead on the other hand appear to have tried to do something different, challenging & artistic here but there is no soul, message or feelingin it so most of the songs come across as w..k pretending to be art. Which they undoubtedly are.
