Portishead
Portishead
Go! Beat/London, Released 1997

How do you follow up a record that had the same impact
on electronic music that Nirvana's Nevermind had on
rock? You solidify your arrangements with real
instruments and add stronger emotion to your vocals
without diluting the spirit that made you so successful in
the first place.

It wasn't as simple as that but, after three years of
wallowing in bewilderment at the remarkable reaction
towards their debut record Dummy, this was the course
Portishead charted in creating their self-titled sophomore
effort.

Portishead was never going to be a tour de force like
Dummy, but three years removed from trip-hop's
mainstream birth, Portishead was still a gem of the genre
and a bold step forward for the group, if not an extremely
innovative one. Ambition and confidence filled the record,
much in the same way that despair and despondency
filled the aura of Dummy.

From the startlingly expressive opening moments of
"Cowboys" and the jazzy arrangement of "All Mine," you
realize that Portishead is a band, not a faceless
electronic "collective." Producer and unofficial fourth
member Dave McDonald is the man responsible for giving
Portishead its many shades of Bristol gray. The lush yet
harrowing musical textures show that Barrow and Utley
have as much prodigious natural talent for writing music
as anyone in Britain today.

The star power of Beth Gibbons grows to epic proportions
with every bile-flavored lyric she hisses. The growth of the
band's sound meant that Gibbons need not shelter her
voice as much she had. So while Dummy-like sampled
tracks such as "Only You" still define the Portishead
sound, a torch song like "Mourning Air" clearly places
Gibbons among those few with pure raw vocal talent. As
long as that voice can lament, Portishead will forever have
a captive audience.

If you like Portishead, check out:
Portishead Dummy
Portishead PNYC
Massive Attack Mezzanine
Massive Attack Blue Lines
Broadcast The Noise Made By People
PJ Harvey To Bring You My Love

Pierre Stefanos