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Rating: I know this album by Portishead has already been reviewed, but I still want to share my thoughts on this work that I find nothing short of special...
I wasn't very familiar with Portishead, but once in a CD store I listened to a song, specifically "Wandering Star" and then "It's A Fire", and I fell in love with it.
Just a bit of mystery, a soft and delicate voice like Beth's, and the atmosphere is set; add in epic and cinematic sounds, and heartrending and melancholic lyrics, and you feel transported into a three-dimensional dimension, and while the day goes by normally, you can't wait to get home, lay down somewhere, and start the journey of sensations contained in this work.
Starting with "Mysterons" which heralds a work of electronic and soft nature, you move through the wonderful sampling in "Sour Times", from "Wandering Star" to the orchestral "It's A Fire", then "Roads" is nothing short of heartrending and "Biscuit" is the perfect symbol of this album, it all closes with the "sexiest" "Glory Box", where Beth shows all the J.LO or Spears what it means to have a bold voice... that naturally knows how to captivate... well, with their second self-titled work, Portishead prove to be bolder, harder with an almost claustrophobic sound, but definitely impactful... still an excellent and original band to be appreciated more...
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Mysterons (05:06)
Inside you're pretending
Crimes have been swept aside
Somewhere where they can forget
Divine upper reaches
Still holding on
This ocean will not be grasped
All for nothing
Did you really want?
Did you really want?
Did you really want?
Did you really want?
Refuse to surrender
Strung out until ripped apart
Who dares, dares to condemn
All for nothing
Did you really want?
Did you really want?
Did you really want?
Did you really want?
02 Sour Times (04:14)
To pretend no one can find
The fallacies of morning rose
Forbidden fruit, hidden eyes
Courtesies that I despise in me
Take a ride, take a shot now
Cause nobody loves me, it's true
Not like you do
Covered by the blind belief
That fantasies of sinful screens
Bear the facts, assume the dye
End the vows no need to lie, enjoy
Take a ride, take a shot now
Cause nobody loves me, it's true
Not like you do
Who am I, what and why
Cause all I have left is my memories of yesterday
Ohh these sour times
Cause nobody loves me, it's true
Not like you do
After time, the bitter taste
Of innocence, descent or race
Scattered seeds, buried lives
Mysteries of our disguise revolve
Circumstance will decide
Cause nobody loves me, it's true
Not like you
Nobody loves me, it's true
Not like you do
03 Strangers (03:58)
Ohh...
Can anybody see the light
Where the morn meets the dew
And the tide rises
Did you realise no one can see inside your view?
Did you realise forwhy this sight belongs to you?
Ohh...
Just set aside your fears of life
With the sole desire
Done it warning
Done in now
This ain't real
On in this side
Done it warning
Done in now
This ain't real
On in this side
Done it warning
Done in now
This ain't real
Done it warning
Done in now
This ain't real
On in this side
Ohh...
Oh can anybody see the light
Where the morn meets the dew
And the tide rises
Did you realise no one can see inside your view?
Did you realise, forwhy this sight belongs to you?
04 It Could Be Sweet (04:20)
I don't want to hurt you
For no reason have I but fear
And I ain't guilty
Of the crimes you accuse me of
But I'm guilty of fear
I'm sorry to remind
You but I'm scared
Of what we're creating
This life ain't fair
You don't get something for nothing, turn now
Gotta try a little harder
It could be sweet
Like a long forgotten dream
And we don't need them
To cast the fate we have
Love don't always shine through
'cause I don't wanna lose
What we had last time
You're leaving
This life ain't fair
You don't get something for nothing, turn now
Gotta try a little harder
It could be sweet
But the thoughts we try to deny
Take a toll upon our lives
We struggle on in depths of pride
Tangled up in single minds
'cause I don't wanna lose
What we had last time
You're leaving
This life ain't fair
You don't get something for nothing, turn back
Gotta try a little harder
'cause I don't wanna lose
What we had last time your leaving
This life ain't fair
You don't get something for nothing, turn back
Gotta try a little harder
It could be sweet
05 Wandering Star (04:54)
Please could you stay awhile to share my grief,
For it's such a lovely day,
To have to always feel this way,
And the time that I will suffer less,
Is when I never have to wake.
Wandering stars,
For whom it is reserved,
The blackness of darkness, forever,
Wandering stars,
For whom it is reserved,
The blackness of darkness, forever.
Those who have seen the needles eye, now tread,
Like a husk, from which all that was now has fled,
And the masks, that the monsters wear,
To feed, upon their prey.
Wandering stars,
For whom it is reserved,
The blackness of darkness, forever,
Wandering stars,
For whom it is reserved,
The blackness of darkness, forever.
Doubled up inside,
Take awhile to shed my grief,
Always doubled up inside,
Taunted, cruel.
Wandering stars,
For whom it is reserved,
The blackness the darkness, forever,
Wandering stars,
For whom it is reserved,
The blackness, the darkness, forever.
07 Numb (03:58)
I'm ever so lost
I can't find my way
Been searching, but I have never seen
A turning, a turning from deceit
'Cause the child roses like
Try to reveal what I could feel
I can't understand myself anymore
'cause I'm still feeling lonely
Feeling so unholy
'Cause the child roses like
Try to reveal what I could feel
And this loneliness
It just won't leave me alone, oh no
I'm fooling somebody
A faithless path I roam
Deceiving to breath this secretly
A silence, this silence I can't bear
'Cause a child roses light
Tries to reveal what I could feel
And this loneliness
It just won't leave me alone, oh no
And this loneliness
It just won't leave me alone
A lady of war
A lady of war
08 Roads (05:05)
Ohh, can't anybody see
We've got a war to fight
Never found our way
Regardless of what they say
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
Storm.. in the morning light
I feel
No more can I say
Frozen to myself
I got nobody on my side
And surely that ain't right
And surely that ain't right
Ohh, can't anybody see
We've got a war to fight
Never found our way
Regardless of what they say
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
Ohh, can't anybody see
We've got a war to fight
Never found our way
Regardless of what they say
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
09 Pedestal (03:41)
How can I believe this miracle
Where the wind blows dry
Through the force of a man
Undenied by his eye
Oh you abandoned me
How I suffer
Ridicule breathes a sigh
You abandoned me
Lost forever
Hush, can you hear
Enter and rejoice this pedestal
where the rainbows hide
Your destiny
Mystery of all time
Oh no time make or reason
Ridicule breathes a sigh
no time, make or reason
Hush, hear him cry
No time, make or reason
No time, make or reason
No time, make or reason
10 Biscuit (05:04)
I'm lost, exposed
Stranger things will come your way
It's just I'm scared
Got hurt a long time ago
Can't make myself heard
No matter how hard I scream
Oh sensation
Sin, slave of sensation
Fully fed yet I still hunger
Torn inside
Haunted I tell myself yet I still wander
Down, inside
It's tearing me apart
Oh sensation
Sin, slave of sensation
I'll never fall in love again
It's all over now
At last, relief
A mother's son has left me sheer
The shores I seek
Are crimson tastes divine
Can't make myself heard
No matter how hard I scream
Oh sensation
Sin, slave of sensation
I'll never fall in love again
It's all over now
11 Glory Box (05:06)
I'm so tired
Of playing,
Playing with this bow and arrow
Gonna give my heart away
Leave it to the other girls to play
For I've been a temptress too long
Just. . .
Give me a reason to love you
Give me a reason to be...
A woman.
I just wanna be a woman.
From this time, unchained
We're all looking at a different picture
Through this new frame of mind
A thousand flowers could bloom
Move over, and give us some room,
Yeah
Give me a reason to love you
Give me a reason to be...
A woman.
I just wanna be a woman.
(Instrumental)
So don't you stop bein' a man
Just take a little look from our side when you can
Sow a little tenderness
No matter if you cry
Give me a reason to love you
Give me a reason to be here;
A woman.
It's all I wanna be is a woman
For this is the beginning of forever and ever
Its time to move over
I'm so tired, of playing
Playing with this bow and arrow
Gonna give my heart away
Leave it to the other girls to play
For I've been a temptress too long
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By luciano
Portishead is the only project that managed to impose a 9-year-old track of theirs in a car commercial.
The album is a benchmark.
By manliuzzo
Dummy consecrates itself as one of the best albums I have ever listened to.
Each track offers a different image, together creating a colorful and varied musical vision.
By The_dull_flame
This album engages, which is more difficult: you feel in the middle of the record, as if Beth were singing beside you.
‘Roads’ represents the pinnacle of beauty on the album, a dark ballad that gets under your skin like a needle.
By luludia
What is this stuff? Hyper-depressed dub? Melancholic white soul?
The voice, that voice, comes from there....
