Portishead Third 45rpm 2LP

Portishead's Third, the long-awaited follow up to their 1997 self-titled release, debuted at #7 on Billboard's Top 200. After an 11-year hiatus, Portishead's Third received rave reviews and was hailed as an "unexpected yet totally impressive return" by Rolling Stone, and "worth the wait" by Newsweek.

Portishead are: Geoff Barrow, Adrian Utley and Beth Gibbons.

The notion of a new Portishead album had, for many fans, fallen out of the realm of possibility. If Third had come out in 1999 or 2000, maybe writers would be calling it Portishead's answer to Massive Attack's Mezzanine, another third album by trip-hop icons eschewing dinner-conversation music by embracing anxiety and moodiness. Released today, it instead feels like a staggering transformation and a return to form that was never lost, an ideal adaptation by a group that many people didn't know they needed to hear again.

utterly riveting and endlessly absorbing

As punk's dumbing down has proven, anyone can make abrasive music, but few can do something new and compelling with apocalyptic heaviness. That Portishead manage to do both 14 years into their recorded career is an unexpected triumph over the darkest clouds that have shaped their art and soul.