Portishead have their hugely anticipated new album, Third, released on April 28th through Island Records. Third is the band’s fourth album in total and first since 1998’s Roseland NYC Live. The Bristol based trio, who will be touring the UK and Europe in March and April, will release Machine Gun on 12″ vinyl on April 14th. A digital version of the single is already available on www.portishead.co.uk and itunes.
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Third will be released on CD, double vinyl, digital download. The band are also releasing a limited edition box set exclusively through their website www.portisheadshop.co.uk, which will include - Double vinyl/1GB USB/single etched 12″ vinyl/ltd edition print. The USB features 5 short films that the band have made to accompany the record.
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The band continue their UK tour this week with dates in Edinburgh, Wolverhampton and London.
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Sat 12 Edinburgh Corn Exchange
Sun 13 Wolverhampton Civic
Thurs 17 London Brixton Academy
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See them also appear on Later With Jools on BBC2 on the 18th April.

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Who hasn’t heard of Portishead? First things first, we’re talking about the band, not the place - though the band Portishead did take their name from the town in the west of England.*

Key figures of the Bristol music which also included Massive Attack and Tricky; Portishead won the Mercury Music Award in 1995 for their debut album Dummy, putting them in an elite group of artists that includes Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Pulp, and Primal Scream. However, since the release of their self titled second album in 1997, the band chose to (more or less) avoid the spotlight.

If you know Portishead and have already started humming the chorus from Glory Box you’ll be pleased to know that this hiatus is about to come to an end with the release of Portishead’s highly anticipated new album; Third, later this month. For those of us who can feel Beth Gibbons’ vocals and Geoff Barrow’s music touch a nerve, it might well be the music highlight of 2008. You can find out more below.

If you’ve forgotten about them or they’ve passed you by, click here to listen to two of the tracks from Dummy; Glory Box and Sour Times.

*It’s an endless source of novelty value if you discover the place after the band. I worked there a few years ago, and I was practically boasting about it… you’d think that working in the town made me a band-member.