Portishead. (WARNING! ABSURDLY LONG POST!)

... Age 9, I got into electronic music through Eiffel 65. Yes, "Blue (Da Ba Dee)". Anyone who wants to laugh at me can go kick themself in the shin, it was a catchy album and even now I can revisit a few of those songs and smile.I played it once for my dad and it tortured him and his girlfriend. He then stopped the CD and put on Bjork's "Homogenic" instead. Ah yes, the great artifact of a once unsquandering Bjork. I should thank him again for that.Then, came Portishead. Specifically, "Portishead" or as I enjoy calling it again and again, "The Black Album". It certainly fits. I remember as a kid, liking a mix of hip-hop beats, 'James Bond' guitar, and Beth Gibbons 'Witch Voice'. On a song like "Cowboys", that last interpretation seems still rather accurate on several levels.So, for roughly almost a decade of my life, I've waited for a new Portishead album. I flitted through 'Dummy' (Seriously, THIS is the big album? Critics are stupid.), but essentially worshiped that live album and "THE BLACK ALBUM". "Seven Days", "Cowboys", "Humming", "Only You", that essentially possessed live version of "Sour Times". The best elements of Billie Holliday, Rza, Kurt Cobain and Phil Spector in a blender.Third came. And... I was stunned. Essentially, the hip-hop was gone. The James Bond was gone. Beth was there, but she'd changed stylistically in so many ways... Anybody see Cate Blanchett in "I'm Not There" and wonder "How the fuck is she actually doing this so well?" That's Beth on Third. No longer was she merely the haunting ghost playing torch singer for Prince Lucifer's Big Band. Now, she's about 11 different stars in 11 different masterpieces.What I heard sonically astounded me. Post-Punk guitars. Severly chopped jazz drum-fills. Sunn O))) Worship! No wonder Geoff Barrow scoffed at the idea of working with disciples like Zero 7 and Danger Mouse. He'd not only proven to still be their superior, he made their work seem like childish noodling. Him and Adrian Utley have managed to make a sonic masterpiece.How do you count the ways? The ramshackle "Deep Water", suceeding at doing the Ink Spots tribute that Radiohead's "You and Who's Army?" was aiming for? The Kraftwerkian "The Rip"? "Machine Gun" suggests what Tricky's dreams might sound like, while "We Carry On" must be more like what'd happen if Klaxons spent too much time listening to Berlin-era Bowie. How about "Magic Threads", possibly one of the most achingly brutal yet somber songs in all of Portishead's catalogue?In spite of everything, I can safely say that this album so far is not only easily the best of '08, that it's Portishead's magnum opus, that it's fucking massive... It is simply a work of art. It should, and hopefully will, go down as one of the best albums ever made.