2008 Music Part Two

I remember watching the music video for "Sour Times" with my dad at his apartment as a fifth or sixth grader. He thought it was great, and I'm pretty sure we went to Scotty's Music in downtown Summit to buy the album "Dummy" that very Saturday afternoon. Pretty dark stuff, but it also makes you feel like an awesome spy while you're listening to it. My dad and I liked to drive around pretending we were awesome spies I guess.

Well Portishead made another album that we didn't buy and suddenly disappeared. Trip-hop evolved into music for Park Slope coffee shops. When I found out that Portishead was making another album, eleven years after their last, I figured it would be a lame attempt to recapture their old glory. I figured they'd be mocked by critics, ignored by fans, and forgotten by people like me who used to love them.

What's so surprising about "Third", other than its lame title for the third album by a band, is how it manages to explore the same emotional territory of Portishead's previous work, but in a completely different way. In place of steady trip-hop beats are songs that shift according to their own whims; second track "Hunter" jumps from a dusty black-and-white horror movie soundtrack to spluttering electronic beeps and back again, just for the Hell of it. "Machine Gun" is four and a half minutes of a pummeling drum machine with an incredibly creepy synth thrown in toward the end. "Deep Water" reminds me of that scene in "Saving Private Ryan" when they come upon a ruined French village and hear some eerily pleasant music that somehow survived the bombings. Every song has something bizarre and unique to offer, almost none of them pleasant to listen to at first, all worth exploring and absorbing over repeated listens.

Here's the album in full. It's a grower.