Portishead's Third has been a long time coming, the result of a lengthy creative topor following 1997's dark, distinctly underrated album Portishead. Importantly, though, they've shaken it. While the core trio of Beth Gibbons, Geoff Barrow, and Adrian Utley remains, this is quite a different band to Portishead's 90s incarnation: gone is the slo-mo turntable scratching and smoky jazz ...

Manufacturer: Universal

So, what to do once you've pushed things forward, had a song and a little dance about it and sold the t-shirt? Push things back? Mike Skinner, aka The Streets, faced such a quandary following the comparatively aimless shambles that was third album The Hardest Way to Make An Easy Living which hobbled with neither a clear style or sense of self; a significant problem when he'd justified his ...

Manufacturer: Sixsevenine

Manufacturer: Warner

If you're the defeatist sort that doesn't tend to believe in second (or indeed third) chances, you could do worse than to look to Aussie-pop femme-fatale Sia and for hard evidence Some People Have Real Problems, her third solo effort. Originally celebrated as one of the voices of Zero 7, and also with a solo hit of her own (the pre-Stefani-esque "Taken for Granted"), at the turn of the ...

Manufacturer: Monkey Puzzle

Manufacturer: Cooking Vinyl

Manufacturer: Pinnacle

It's been a slightly tumultuous but hugely successful ride to the top for UK superstars The Sugababes. They've lost not one, but two band members since forming in 1998, but have nonetheless achieved three Brit Awards, an ESKA, a slew of chart hits (including four number ones), four well-received LPs and - more recently - an inclusion in the Guinness Book Of Records for 'Best Female Act Of The ...

Manufacturer: Universal / Island

Manufacturer: Hed Kandi

Many a critical evaluation of Icelandic quartet Sigur Ros has resorted to stock imagery of molten magma, omnipotent ice fields and burbling hot springs--and reasonably so. There's no disavowing the geophysical heartbeat which invigorates the very soul of this most supernatural of bands. Takk may well be Sigur Ros's most stimulating interpretation of their habitat yet--verdant serenity to ...

Manufacturer: EMI

Manufacturer: Ministry of Sound