The year was 1994; Kurt Cobain had ended his life all too soon, Woodstock celebrated its 25th anniversary and a relatively unknown band from Bristol released Dummy. The brooding, angst-ridden album would go on to win a Mercury Award and sell over two million units in Europe alone. Touching on something deep, dark and melancholy, producer Geoof Barrows, guitar player Adrian Utley and the ghost-like voice of Beth Gibbons inspired a generation of artists, and proved to be one of the most influential albums of the 90s. The critically acclaimed, but less popular followup Portishead and subsequent live album Roseland NYC Live followed in 1997 and 1998 respectively, and then things went quiet. Scratch that, they went dead. The band that most had a special place for in their heart seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Fast forward to the present day, and the trio who came down the mountain and pretty much handed down the commandments for trip hop are back presenting Third.

Portishead kicks things off in an unlikely fashion in Silence, where a steady, rolling drum line is pierced by highly distorted guitars, before breaking into the inimitable voice of Gibbons. This distortion and feedback seems to be used liberally throughout the album; it’s effective when used sparingly, but can be painful when overused as is the case here. Always fans of suspenseful strings, Third is no different, with them making appearances in many of the tracks. One of the cleaner tracks is The Rip, where after a percussionless folky intro, it builds into a crunchy little number as cascading synths and brushed cymbals populate the song in an almost Air like fashion.

The first single to be lifted from the album Machine Gun features a slew of heavy drum machine samples before closing out with exhilarating synth lines, evoking visions of 80s sci-fi movies. One of the highlights on the album is the cowbell laden Magic Doors, more as the trio look back to their Dummy style of production, albeit for the tortured brass that seems to appear out of nowhere and disappears just as quickly. Many of the tracks on here seem to take on a Jekyll & Hyde persona – one minute soft and sweet, the next heavy and oppressive. This leaves the listener in a state of confusion, occasionally for the better but usually for the worse.

This is a much grittier outing for the group, as the album seems to suffer from a few personality disorders, but all in all it’s still an interesting and intriguing listen. After leaving fans waiting for so long you would have hoped that it could have hit a higher mark, but instead the roughness only serves to alienate. So can we expect another hiatus or are the group back for good? It seems that fans should have hope, with Geoff Barrows recently musing on his blog that he “can’t wait to write some new tunes.”

In a word: abrasive.