Three years on from the Mercury winning debut album Dummy, Portishead return with an album which at one point looked as if it would never see the light of day, such was the tortuous soulsearching of Geoff Barrow, self proclaimed perfectionist and founder of the band. Whatever dark night of the soul he went through, it has paid of with the triumph which is Portishead.
From the doom laden atmospheric opener 'Cowboys', to the heartbreaking finale of 'Western Eyes', Portishead is a moonlit trip through shadows and tears: a journey to a deep and dark subterrania where the brokenhearted reside.
Whatever demons haunt Geoff Barrow, lyricist Beth Gibbons' own ghosts seem blatantly obvious. Judging by the lyrical content of this album, she is one brokenhearted lady.
With a voice that is at once mournful and defiant, broken and vengeful Beth Gibbons is the finest female singer in Britain today. It is a voice that is stripped down to the emotional core, like Billy Holiday singing from the depths of hell. Her presence is the extra ingredient which lifts Barrow's aural soundscapes into the heavens.
There is no great musical progression on Portishead, rather a refinement of the band's sound.
'Cowboys', released as a limited edition single two months ago is typical of the majority of the album. The now trademark trip hop beats mix with Barrow's scratching technique and the brutal intermittent slashing guitar Hnes of Adrian Utley underpin Gibbons' vocal line with its menacing refrain, "Oh, if you take these things from me" promising danger and violence.
The sense of menace continues on current single'AII Mine' with Gibbons coming on like a preying mantis seducing her lover. "Make no mistake/You shan't escape/Tethered and tied there's nowhere to hide/From me" she moans as a John Barry-like brass section accompanies.
'Undenied'follows, with it's crackling gramophone intro, a bass-line like a heartbeat and a distraught vocal with fatalistic Iyrics like "Now that I've found you/And seen behind those eyes?/How can I carry on?" Gibbons voice grows fainter, dying with the music, leaving only a simple keyboard line ladened with sorrow to conclude the song.
'Half Day Closing' is an atmospheric funeral song to younger happier times. "In the days the golden days/When everybody knew what they wanted/lt ain't here today" cries the vocalist her voice distorted and disembodied, floating above the moog synths, howling feedback and discordant guitar lines which fade to the sound of a harsh wind blowing.
'Over' is the sound of a mental breakdown set to music whilst 'Humming' comes on like a vampiric clarion call to the creatures of the night: the Theremin and strings which underpin this song reminiscent of a SOs B movie soundtrack.
'Mourning Air' is a song filled with confusion and fear, with the narrator reaching out as she falls into an emotional chasm. 'Seven Months' finds her in more defiant mood. With a guitar line as sharp as a razor, Gibbons proclaims "As low as I can be/l will never resign myself/To the trial I see."
'Only You' is probably the finest song on the album. Incorporating space as an instrument intermingled with horns and a delicate piano solo which echoes Gibbons voice, light as the wings of a butterfly, delicate and beautiful with colour and tinged with sadness. Torch songs don't come much better than this.
'Elysium' finds Gibbons angry and accusing, yet proud and defiant in her pain. Among creeping beats and menacing piano chords she proclaims "you can't deny how I feel/And you can't decide for me."
Things are brought to an end with 'Western Eyes', which contains the most effective use of strings on the album. "Yes I'm breaking at the seams just like you" comes the refrain, making her pain universal, encompassing us all, as the string section stirs like a hive of angry wasps.
Beth Gibbons is famous as being interview shy. She leaves it to Geoff Barrow to be the spokesman for the band. When you make music as emotionally naked as the songs found on Portishead, attempting to explain yourself to a journalist is a pointless exercise.
This album may be lost in the plethora of excellent releases of 1997. It may be viewed as too downbeat, too fatalistic. It does not deserve to be. It is as good a record as Dummy, if not better. Portishead is the place where the music of this century meets; from jazz and modern classical, through pop, rock, dance and hiphop to the film scores of the sixties and seventies, this is a musical and emotional summation of all that is great in music. And it points the way to the future. It may not be the happiest place on the planet, but it's somewhere I for one will be visiting time and time again.