Portishead: Sadness Never Sounded so Sweet

Album: Dummy
Artist: Portishead
Genre: Trip-Hop/Noir Jazz
Year: 1994
Label: Go! Discs/London

Since there’s a new Portishead album (their first in ten years,) I ought to review their first album, Dummy, to give you a bit of history. Portishead was formed in Bristol in 1991, a trio comprised of Beth Gibbons (Vocals), Geoff Barrow (Production/Music) and Adrian Utley (Production/Music/Guitars.) They are one of the greatest Trip-Hop groups of all time. Why? Gibbons voice is the sound of an angel trapped on earth longing for heaven and Barrow and Utley create some of the most haunting and beautiful sound sculptures for her to sing over.

Dummy is an album without a weak track, from start to finish every piece is a siren song from the void, recounting tales of woe; unrequited love and lust so mournfully you feel yourself just sink into them. This is not to say the album is over saturating or smothering. It can be downright slick at times, the down-tempo soundtrack to an unmade film noir, complete with femme fatales and smoky nightclubs. It’s actually very sparse sounding at times, and yet it colors everything a very, VERY deep blue. Strings, chimes, keys and trumpets are all sampled and repurposed expertly, with Gibbons voice soaring, sliding and flowing out over everything. Make no mistake, without her, Portishead would be nothing. Massive Attack may have been the geniuses behind tracks like “Teardrop” and “Protection” but I bet even Del Naja and Grant Marshal gritted their teeth with jealousy upon hearing tracks like “Strangers” and “Wandering Star”. Gibbons voice is imperfect, but fits whatever music is created for her in an unsettlingly perfect fashion. Going back to “Wandering Star,” the song is exquisitely beautiful in its sadness, the perfect accompaniment to your grief.

I want to stress to you, when I talk about sadness, grief, sorrow and general unhappiness in music, I am not talking about Emo. This music is not Emo; this is what every Emo band wishes they had. The angst projected by so many musical acts today is so thickly disingenuous that you can cut it with a knife. Portishead on the other hand exudes emotion, real emotion, and the kicker is they don’t over do it; everything is a perfectly measured injection of misery and longing, rather than the "spray and pray" tactics of Emo bands. Of course, Portishead isn’t a rock band in any sense, and in the realm of Trip-Hop are equaled only by Massive Attack in terms of their sheer musical skill.

After a long hiatus, Portishead has returned with a new album that will be good, probably excellent, in fact. But will it equal Dummy? No, it won’t. But that’s okay; they made Dummy once, they don’t need to do it again. Go get this album. You will be a better person for it.