Source: Mojo, October, 1997
Alone again or however the reticent Beth Gibbons spends her life, it sounds like it hurts. And it makes for great records.

By James McNair

Portishead
Portishead (Go!Beat)

Long awaited follow-up to 1994's double platinum masterpiece Dummy. band perfectionist Geoff Barrow has admitted that he
"definately lost it for about 13 months". Thankfully, the record's more inventive than the title.

With canny timing, Gibbons, Barrow, Utley and co have chosen to emerge from their aural-sepia time capsule just as the nights
start to draw in. Drum'n'bass may hove come to the fore in their absence but Portishead, it seems, are still happiest when
dousing their torch songs in foggy languor and holding the reins on the beats per minute. Some say (whisper it) trip-hop is
already a spent genre, nothing more than spliff-user-friendly montage which has little or no import when the smoke clears. With
this challenging and moving record, the premier purveyors of pop noir put paid to that theory once and for all On first listen, no
great shift in emphasis is apparent. Though the vocal melodies are a little more obtuse than on Dummy, certain key elements of
the band's sound - the Theremin which haunts Humming, Utley's 'Randall And Hopkirk Deceased' guitar stylings on Mourning
Air- remain intact. Listen more closely however, and you'll soon discover some fresher feats of sonic alchemy. On Half Day
Closing - which, be warned, really does journey to the heart of darkness - Gibbons's almost atonal vocal has been put through
a whirring Leslie speaker cabinet and heavily treated. As the song lurches into its bizarre coda, her voice seems to
metamorphose into a feedbacking guitar. Elsewhere, the swishing, glitching scratch breaks on Cowboys and Only You utilise
another musical language: one that Geoff Barrow is speaking with increasing fluency.

If Barrow, Utley and engineer Dave McDonald are the alchemists, then Beth Gibbons's extraordinary voice - sometimes
seductively subtle, sometimes almost unbearably fractious - is surely crucial in producing the gold. Warmly cocooned in the
ubiquitous vinyl-age hiss and scratch the genre demands, Gibbons is now playing the recidivist lover with the glass heart more
convincingly than ever. On Undenied, which begins with a delicious, gossamer-light burble of electric piano, she conjures an
arresting sense of intimacy, while on Seven Months, that sensual hint of the feline which made Glory Box so enticing is back as
she sings "Why should I forgive you after all that I have seen/Quietly whisper when my heart wants to scream ?"

Interesting to note that Gibbons's ongoing interview phobia helps preserve the mystique that she generates between the
speakers. Perhaps all chez Portishead have realised it's best that the truth about their singer remains a mystery.

As our feature states, the pressure they felt to emulate the success of Dummy nearly finished Portishead while they made this
album. Though simple logic suggests that it won't make the iconoclastic splash that their debut did, Portishead is clear
testament to the potential longevity of their sound. And though we've waited forever, it's been more than worth it.

A beautiful album beckons, as long as your stock of Prozac holds out.