Third (Portishead album)  Third is the third studio album by English electronic music band Portishead. It was released on 28 April 2008 in the United Kingdom by Island Records and a day later in the United States by Mercury Records. Portishead's first studio album in eleven years, it moved away from the trip hop style they had popularised, incorporating influences such as krautrock, surf rock, doo wop, and the film soundtracks of John Carpenter. "Third" was named one of the best albums of 2008 by several publications. It entered the top ten of several countries' music charts and has Gold certification by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). In 1998, following three years of tours and a divorce, Geoff Barrow put Portishead on hiatus and went to Australia. He told "Drowned in Sound": "I couldn't find anything I liked musically in anybody, in anything." Guitarist and keyboardist Adrian Utley joined him to work on new material, but they were not satisfied with the results. In 2003, Barrow wrote "Magic Doors", which he described as "an opening ... then we ended up going back and forth, hating everything and then liking everything, and we had to decide whether to carry on." He and Utley co-produced the 2005 Coral album "The Invisible Invasion". The process proved inspiring, as according to Barrow, "here’s me and Ade, these older dudes, too scared to even play a note because we were scared we'd hate it, and there’s them, just being able to write a soundtrack in an afternoon". Portishead self-produced "Third" in their Bristol studios. Many of the songs existed for years as sketches, with the members exchanging recordings and adding ideas. By 2006, Portishead had prepared six or seven tracks. Barrow said most of the record was written during a "spurt" at the end of 2007. Wanting to move away from the trip hop sound they had popularised, Portishead avoided using instruments they had used before; Barrow said "the basic thing was to sound like ourselves, not to repeat ourselves". The band members experimented with swapping roles; Barrow played bass, and singer Beth Gibbons played guitar on "Threads". Utley said Portishead were "looking for limited frequency in instruments ... limited playing, too. I pursued virtuosity for many years, learning scales and harmony, and being able to improvise through scales and chords, but technique isn't important for me any more."