Tales of Deceit: Portishead’s Portishead at 25

Looking back on the Bristol outfit’s classic second album

September 28, 2022May 29, 2023 Ted Miller 0 Comments 1997, 25th Anniversary, Beth Gibbons, Cowboys, Geoff Barrow, Go! Discs, Humming, Portishead, Portishead (1997)

Portishead (1997) on cassette (Image: Discogs)

I find it difficult to explain why I play Portishead’s self-titled second album the most of their three full-lengths.

All three are fantastic, though it’s probably the “weakest” if you were to keep score on a song-by-song basis. None of its 11 tracks are as celebrated or visionary as “Sour Times,” “Glory Box” or probably even “Machine Gun” or “The Rip,” and those songs are more distinct from each other than anything on Portishead. The closest thing here is the Bond-ready “All Mine,” which breaks the evil mood just enough into camp for Tom Jones to have covered it. But you won’t hear the Welshman affecting Beth Gibbons’ Addams Family moan for “Half Day Closing” or “Cowboys.”

That eponymous title is probably a clue; it’s by far the most archetypal of their three albums, with no changes in mood, tempo or key. There’s no “It’s a Fire” or “It Could Be Sweet” softening the darker edges between the jagged ones. Any of its songs would’ve made sense on Dummy, “Over” replacing “Strangers” or “Numb,” say. But substituting anything from their debut onto Portishead would spoil the atmosphere, which is what they committed to more than anything else on their frustrated middle child.

VIDEO: Portishead “All Mine”

So every song here comes with a creeping mid-slow tempo and a minor key, with sound effects beamed in from all retro sources, whether it’s spooky theremin on “Humming” or the Shirley Bassey-ready brass on “All Mine.” Maybe because it’s their most sustained sound I find it the most cohesive and relaxing so to speak. Or maybe I cling to those dissonances as comfort food like they’re Sonic Youth. More likely I still find new things to hear in Portishead than their more distinguished albums because the tunes are a little more fogged, a little more out of reach.

There’s plenty of distinction to enjoy, though: Gibbons adopting an Ursula-Cruella voice from the crawling get-go of “Cowboys,” which curdles into a pleading chorus with a sour key change. Adopting full villainess glamour for the possessive howling of “All Mine.” The drowned New Orleans brass of “Mourning Air.” And one of Gibbons’ finest-ever turns on “Only You,” which toys with its threadbare melody like a mouse between cat jaws until the chorus finally bites down. The dry, turntable-led verses scratching at a Pharcyde sample only set the trap more starkly. And my favorite sound on the whole record, the menacing robot-whistle synth riff that caps off each spidery, bluesy verse of “Half Day Closing,” bottomed by chords that seem to tighten their bloodthirsty grip within every change. Gibbons’ every vocal sounds like it’s vowed, every tune (but especially “Seven Months”) sounds like a Disney villainess’ origin story or promise of revenge.

VIDEO: Portishead “Only You”

And yet this is a mood piece through and through, with songs interchangeable in the best way, sounding woven into one large encompassing patchwork you remember bits you could mix and match from rather than discrete track-by-track numbers. Its production may be retro, reliant on turntable scratching and sampled-horn cues rarely heard outside of incidental film music, but 25 years on we’re still catching up to the dubwise hiss of the stove-baked drum filters, the seamless playing of Clive Deamer that sounds sampled and vice versa. The sizzling high frequencies and ominous bass ones. The ASMR of close-miked Gibbons crumpling syllables in her fist right next to your ear.

Rarely have the sounds of easy listening and chill-out been detuned to such nefarious effect without invoking aggression itself. Portishead would get noisier and weirder 11 years later with Third, a complete 180 that brought in krautrock and ukulele to combat the claustrophobic constancy of this record. But as a bleak immersion into themselves scraping every last nuance and scrap from the barrel of the undeniable sound they instantly achieved, Portishead is one of the most replayable more-of-the-same follow-ups that any artist has thrown to a hungry fanbase.

Any of their three albums could be defended as their best, but their second is unquestionably the most them.