Records: Portishead's Portishead

By Hrishikesh Hirway

I was apprehensive about this album long before it was released. Portishead's first album, Dummy, has been one of the most ubiquitous and well-worn albums in my collection, and the prospect of a follow-up album that could maintain the same standards seemed at best, unrealistic.

Unfortunately, I was right. While the new self-titled album is a strong production, it is not of the same caliber as their first effort. The sound has changed subtly, and the band's new direction steers away from some of the strongest and most original aspects of their sound. Geoff Barrow's vintage samples and hip-hop beats still drive Beth Gibbons' honeyed voice, but the mood of Portishead is even more dark and haunting than Dummy, perhaps capturing the fog-filled and dismally murky ambience of their namesake shipping-dock town. I have no hesitations in ranking this album up with Tomandandy's soundtrack to Killing Zoe, or even Tricky's Pre-Millennium Tension, both records defining that fragile, yet almost sinister trip-hop sound. Dummy, however, transcended the specificity of these other three. Its distinct flavors and feel contained within its bounds the range of artists like Tricky or Goldie, but its versatility makes it appropriate to accompany night driving, or having sex, or doing work, or sleeping. Dummy is a deep-groove, beat-heavy lullaby--perhaps my favorite fifty minutes ever recorded. If you fell asleep while listening to the new Portishead, it might give you nightmares.

Beth Gibbons' voice has an other-worldly quality to its sultriness to begin with, but on top of that, she takes a less- traditional approach on this album. She sings many tracks in the nasal, melodramatic style she uses on "Glory Box" ("I'm so tired of playing, playing, playing with my bow and arrow..."). In addition, her vocals are put through filters and effects that distort their natural beauty. Though this is certainly cool, and interesting to listen to, I know what I prefer, and thankfully, on a few tracks, Gibbons sings less artificially.

Geoff Barrows has done a superb job once again in choosing samples and beats. At the very worst, some of the grooves get a little old. We may hear that Isaac Hayes-inspired, slow, descending bass line one too many times, but this is hardly a harsh indictment. The band could be accused of writing the same song over and over, but it's a goddamn good song. The first official single off this album, "All Mine," is a good showcase for Portishead, and the new, if not exactly new, Portishead sound. The label describes the album as sounding "more like Portishead than Portishead" ever did--an accurate illustration of the decision to focus on a very distinct, specific effect, evoked with the James Bond spy movie samples and lurching beats that clock in under 110 bpm.

The mood is atmospheric, since Gibbons' lyrics are less important than the sheer sound of her voice atop the spooked out moog-and-drum machine backdrop, the tritones and dark dissonances. On the seventh track, "Mourning Air", is really where the band finds how to maintain their new noir sound without losing the accessibility and universal appeal of the best moments of Dummy.

Don't get me wrong. I think everyone should buy this album. Buy Dummy first, fall in love with the band, then experience this as an addendum to that ground-breaking material. If Portishead the album were my only contact with Portishead the band, I'd credit them with less range and quality than they deserve, but I'd still think they were the bomb.

Even as I write this review, this album is growing on me. When I first put it in, I was looking for Dummy II. I've enjoyed that first album since 1994, and my sentimental feelings for it almost outweigh my critical judgments of the music. In the end, I'd praise this sophomore effort as one of the best albums produced in the genre since DJ Shadow's Endtroducing...from 1996, but I'm left still searching for anything that can hold a candle to the opus with which this band debuted. (Go! Beat Discs)

Back to A & E...