After taking an almost 8 year hiatus, the three piece group Portishead is back with an all new album, properly titled Third, as it is the band’s third full length release. This unique band has kept it low key for quite some time with many fans almost giving up hope for future releases. Fortunately the UK act decided to gather and record all new material. This is their first release in over 10 years.

Lead singer Beth Gibbons has a voice that fills you with gloom and emotion even on your best day.  She sings so beautifully, filled with emotion unlike any other female vocalist, and has been known to cry while singing a song. Alongside Beth Gibbons is instrumentalist Geoff Barrow and jazz guitarist Adrian Utley. Geoff Barrow had worked with trip-hop artist Tricky as well as Massive Attack, while Adrian Utley was a successful jazz artist. The three united in 1991 to form a band that they wanted to be different, and that they did.

When I heard Portishead was working on new material late last year, I became overly excited. This trip-hop band won me over in the nineties with their beautiful yet full of sorrow music. It was a genre of music I had never heard before and became quickly addicting to my ears. I must have listened to their debut CD a dozen times the first day I got it; I was just enthralled with the jazz meets techo-like beats and smooth scratching matching up to Beth Gibbons' singing. This time around, I discovered the band had shimmed off the trip-hop a bit and seems to have tried something different.

Opening track “Silence” seemed to instantly replenish that empty Portishead feeling I have had all this time but never realized. Hearing Beth Gibbons' voice once again was like reuniting with an old friend. This song is more subject to their older material.