Portishead
Third

This group, which has become one of the key in the trip-hop style and has retained its cult status for many years, surpassed all possible records of silence - 11 (!!!) years have passed since their previous album. Well, unless, of course, you do not count the pirated pseudo-album Pearl and the solo album by Beth Gibbons, which I have not yet heard, alas. What pleasantly surprised me was the almost complete absence of fashionable sound and arrangement stamps of the last 5-8 years, the preservation of some kind of deep identity, the group's own world - and at the same time without obvious self-plagiarism. The only thing that feels like following the changed time is that the guitars and rhythms have become smoother and at the same time more energized and dynamic when compared with the Dummy and Portished albums (However, this is practically the case for everyone now, including your humble servant. the information globalization of the entire civilized world is seen - more and more information is poured on a person from different sides, creating more nervous tension and fussiness - and this, deposited both in the collective and in the personal unconscious, affects, among other things, the creative language . IMHO.) The album begins with two bright, well-fitting songs - Silence and Hunter, then more introverted sounding tracks follow, which towards the end of the album become more calm and soothing - this (very, by the way, trivial) tendency climaxes at 9 -m track, Small.