Portishead

Third

(Universal)

4 stars

Third, which is the first studio album in 11 years from legendary trip-hop innovators Portishead, features a song called, appropriately enough “We Carry On.” But this is no triumphant “don’t call it a comeback” leadoff track; it’s a dark, driving tune that pops up midway through the album, a repetitive phrase played on a wheezy harmonium accompanied by a sinister quick-march rhythm track. If the song is about carrying on, it’s in the resigned, post-apocalyptic, Samuel Beckett sense: “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” 

Third is an album where even “Deep Water,” 90 seconds of singer Beth Gibbons accompanied by a ukulele, sounds ominous—Tiny Tim crossed with Trent Reznor, recorded in a fallout shelter. Or a cave, more likely, along with all the other ragged human beings who gathered there after civilization fell apart. 

And yet there’s a strange beauty amidst all the dissonance on Third. The jagged, industrial clatter of “Machine Gun” isn’t enough to drown the yearning in Gibbons’ voice, still poignantly straining at the very limits of her upper register. And those loud, swooping tones, like an air-raid siren with the bass cranked up, which close out the album’s final track, “Threads,” manage to sound unearthly yet comforting at the same time—like whalesong. 

The future may look bleak, but at least it’s still got Portishead in it.

PAUL MATWYCHUK

The Wet Secrets

Rock Fantasy

(independent)

4 stars

The marching band motif that crops up in all the press for The Wet Secrets’ newest album, Rock Fantasy, doesn’t do the tunes justice. Not that the stomp and shout of a parade doesn’t suit the bands’ equally punchy rhythms and blazing brass; the Music Man image just makes the band look sweeter than they sound. The first track, “Get Your Own Apartment,” is a romp of thumping drums surrounded by a wall of crunchy guitars, lifted with soft, girly “oooh”-ing and acid-trippy keyboard riffs. Despite its title, “Grow Your Own Fucking Moustache, Asshole” pales in vulgarity next to tunes like “I Teabagged Myself” and “The Chinball Wizard” (two versions included, one a remix by Cadence Weapon). Still, each song holds its own as a catchy fucking single, ready to spread as quick as a newfound dirty word through the halls of the local high school. Rock Fantasy is the ultimate indie-rock experience—one that’s certain to give more than one kid some musical wet dreams.

CHRIS LEWIS 

THEE OH SEES

The Master’s Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In

(Tomlab) 3 1/2 stars

You may remember John Dwyer from his time in louder-than-fuck groups like The Coachwhips, Pink & Brown, and The Hospitals—he was the guy with the Jerry Lee Lewis haircut singin’ into a hotwired telephone receiver. 

His new band Thee Oh
Sees, (né Orinoka Crash Suite, Orc Cyclops Sorcerer), has been around for some time now, but somehow managed to slip under my radar. Their sound is tenderer than you’d expect from the man who penned such garage-rippers as “My Baby, I Killed Her” and “Death Machine,” but this ain’t no stroll through Central Park either. 

Songs like “Graveyard Drug Party” slap a five to The Velvet Underground, while “You Will See This Dog Before You Die” sounds like a less grunge-obsessed Ponys. Throw in some ’60s girl-group harmonies and droning psych guitar and you’re on the right track. 

This is the kind of band that becomes real popular overnight, so dig it before they get signed to Vice and everyone you hate knows about ’em.

TRAVIS SARGENT 

Retribution Gospel Choir

Retribution Gospel Choir

(Caldo Verde) 3 1/2 stars

Remember those bands from the golden age of campus radio, like the Volcano Suns and Urge Overkill? Alan Sparhawk, frontman for Low, sure does. His guitar-rawk trio Retribution Gospel Choir takes the listener back to the simple, sludgy heyday of little-known regional indie rock over 10 tracks that buzz and thump and toss off memorable singalong choruses, like on highlights “Somebody’s Someone” and “Easy Prey.” The light-handed production by Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek doesn’t add much wallop to the sound but, on the plus side, maintains an endearing shaggy, lo-fi quality. A couple of longer, dronier minor-key tunes—“Take Your Time” and “Destroyer”—stray from the band’s amiable buddies-in-the-basement aesthetic, but of the remaining tunes it seems like a different one gets stuck in my earhole every time I put the album on. If I still had a cassette deck, a few RGC songs would for sure make it onto this really cool mixtape I was going to give you...

SCOTT LINGLEY