Album: Portishead, Third (Island)

Say what you like about Portishead; you can't accuse them of being in it for the money. The easy thing to do, a decade-plus since their much-adored debut, would be to play it safe and offer up 'Dummy' redux.

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Instead, 'Third' comes informed by the uncommercial music the trio have been listening to in the interim (namely avant-garde drone-rock). If you're looking for cinematic cool, it's there fleetingly in "Hunter" or "The Rip", but more often, it's a horror movie mood: Beth Gibbons sounds so traumatised and haunted it's like listening to the voice of Sadako in Hideo Nakata's 'Ring'.

Pick of the Album: Think tides rather than tears: 'The Rip'

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