Album Rating: 5.0

I love this nearly as much as Dummy, which always sounds crazy until I dive back in. It will never have the same atmosphere, in fact the s/t beats it out in that regard, but man does this have a quality batch of creative song-writing.

Yeah, the amount of ideas the play with here sets a standard for comeback albums. This is giving me enough chills to potentially put it in a similar league to Dummy, gonna bump big time

Album Rating: 4.0

Sick

Threads is beyond sick, maybe their darkest track?

Album Rating: 5.0

Yeah man, loving the love for this! It is so close to being equally as amazing as their first two, in some areas it even surpasses them. Threads is incredibly dark agreed, one of my fave Portishead tracks.

Album Rating: 4.0

machine gun is just legendary

I'd likely rank this above self titled tbqh

sometimes i fantasize about people performing songs in particular ways and I always thought it would be really cool albeit very nearly impossible for a one man band to perform "the rip", just playing guitar at first and then as quickly as possible switching to a synth with the right hand and drums simultaneously with the left (the beat is simple enough that you could pull off a facsimile of what happens on the record) i'd give that guy money in the subway platform. especially if he could hold the note like robot-beth does for like a whole minute

Tbh as much as I do love self titled, I think it's a pretty underwhelming follow up to Dummy. When I first got into Portishead I assumed it came out before Dummy as it was self titled and it just straight up sounds like a less evolved, more homogeneous version of it. It still trips me out that that was their second album and not their first. This is a much more obvious evolution.

Album Rating: 4.0

dang

s/t has the better noir atmosphere and for me, the standouts here compare to anything on this or dummy

Album Rating: 4.5

Yeah I can definitely hear the progression in sound.

Album Rating: 5.0

Me too, I love all of their stuff dearly and deeply.

I mean I have all three 5'd so it's not really a matter of not loving s/t

"just straight up sounds like a less evolved, more homogeneous version of it"
had not considered this - always thought it sounded like an attempted refinement on the darker parts of Dummy, but this maybe makes more sense

Agree that the standouts here compare to Dummy standouts. Some of this shit is just bonkers.

None of the standouts on s/t compare to the standouts on this or Dummy tho tbqh. Except maybe the last like 40 seconds of Western Eyes.

But s/t has fewer notable lows than either too. It's like Portishead's 100th Window for me or something (except much better) in that its relatively homogeneous but also extremely consistent.

Album Rating: 5.0

IIIIII FEEEEEEELL SOOOOOOO COOOOOOOOLLLLDDDD



So nice that I'm not the only one who adores that moment. So good.

One of my absolute fav portishead moments

Album Rating: 5.0

Ugh yes, same.

Makes me instantly want to relisten to the whole thing. Just because you feel it coming all the time, but it does so only once.

Album Rating: 4.5

nylon smile is up top 3 portishead song for me