Third

Third is the third studio album by English musical group Portishead, released on 27 April 2008, on Island Records in the United Kingdom, two days after on Mercury Records in the United States, and on 30 April 2008 on Universal Music Japan in Japan. It is their first release in 10 years, and their first studio album in eleven years. Third entered the UK Album Chart at #2, and became the band's first-ever American Top 10 album on the Billboard 200, reaching #7 in its entry week.
n December 2007, during the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Minehead, England, Portishead played their first full live set in 10 years, featuring five new songs: "Hunter", "Machine Gun", "Wicca" (retitled as "Silence"), "Mystic" (retitled as "The Rip"), and "Peaches" (retitled as "We Carry On"), all of which appear on Third.
On 21 April, all of Third was made available as a free web stream on Last.fm.
Upon its release, Third earned widespread critical acclaim, and was ranked as one of the best albums of 2008 by several publications. Alan Ranta of PopMatters gave the album a 9/10, saying "History will eventually see it rank on par with the rest of their legendary works".
Allmusic called the album "utterly riveting and endlessly absorbing" in their review. The publication also went on to say, "It demands attention, requiring effort on the part of the listener, as this defies any conventions on what constitutes art pop apart from one key tenet, one that is often attempted yet rarely achieved: it offers music that is genuinely, startlingly original."