2008 Woodie Awards
Portishead back after eleven year hiatus
By: Peter Valelly, Arts Editor
Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: The Arts
Rivaling "Machine Gun" as the album's finest moment, however, is "Nylon Smile." With muted but tom-heavy percussion and synth whimpers that seem to perpetually recede from the aural environment, the song suggests a ghostly feminine counterpart to Radiohead's "There There." In the middle of it all is Gibbons, her soprano razor sharp and her words harrowing. The song begins with fluid cooing before the lyrics frame a paranoid depressive trapped in her own doubts. On the chorus, she issues an impossibly self-loathing lovers' plea: "I don't know what I've done to deserve you/ And I don't know what I'd do without you."
Of course, an album this dark can hardly sustain a sane listener's full attention, and "Third" becomes dreary as it goes on. The album finally careens to a close with "Magic Doors," whose combination of drones and askew rhythms is almost dizzying, and the final track, "Threads," which is so slow it feels on the verge of unraveling until its terrifying and captivating climax.
It's a surprise to see Portishead of all groups bringing us some of the freshest music of 2008. Some might even take it as a sign of desperate musical times that we're looking for musical innovation from a band whose coffee-shop-tinged gloom has long been passé. Yet there's something uniquely captivating and enthralling in the artificially heightened emotional gravitas of Portishead's latest. Ultimately, there's even a surprising hint of hope; who knew a band could reemerge after such a lengthy silence? It's enough to make me wonder what other improbable comebacks are waiting in the wings.
Of course, an album this dark can hardly sustain a sane listener's full attention, and "Third" becomes dreary as it goes on. The album finally careens to a close with "Magic Doors," whose combination of drones and askew rhythms is almost dizzying, and the final track, "Threads," which is so slow it feels on the verge of unraveling until its terrifying and captivating climax.
It's a surprise to see Portishead of all groups bringing us some of the freshest music of 2008. Some might even take it as a sign of desperate musical times that we're looking for musical innovation from a band whose coffee-shop-tinged gloom has long been passé. Yet there's something uniquely captivating and enthralling in the artificially heightened emotional gravitas of Portishead's latest. Ultimately, there's even a surprising hint of hope; who knew a band could reemerge after such a lengthy silence? It's enough to make me wonder what other improbable comebacks are waiting in the wings.
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