Back to my parents' home for the weekend, been here a bit too long for what's currently my taste. Friday was a holiday here, so it made sense to come back then and now I'm held up here because a fool decided to smash the front of my car with the rear of his and the repairs could only be done today, Monday. In any case, I seriously hope it's all fixed by the end of the afternoon as they promised me, or else...

Or else, nothing. I'll just have to wait and moan some more.

In any case, while the weekend proper has been completely unproductive and basically a total waste of my time, I've been able to do some work this morning. Some bad work related news, concerning near future prospects, but we'll see where it will all ultimately go. I should be more certain of what I'll be doing by the end of this week or so I hope.

But what really prompted this post was to share the Pitchfork review for Portishead's new album, "Third". On the rare occasions I got out with my colleagues for lunch, we invariably talking a bit about music and it was the general consensus that "Third" sucks, especially the first single, "Machine Gun". Clearly a lot of people are positively frightened by anything that's unconventional in the slightest. It just scares the hell out of them. Or maybe they are simply unable to comprehend it.

In any case, I thought "Third" is yet another work of genius by this fabulous band and I'm happy Pitchfork agrees with me. Here's a little quote from the aformentioned review:

Keep in mind just how out-of-nowhere this all seems: The notion of a new Portishead album had, for many fans, fallen out of the realm of possibility. If Third had come out in 1999 or 2000, maybe writers would be calling it Portishead's answer to Massive Attack's Mezzanine, another third album by trip-hop icons eschewing dinner-conversation music by embracing anxiety and moodiness. Released today, it instead feels like a staggering transformation and a return to form that was never lost, an ideal adaptation by a group that many people didn't know they needed to hear again.

So true, I couldn't agree more. And "The Rip" is seriously one of my favorite songs of the year. "Third" is definitely a candidate for album of the year, as well. Not that it matters, but it shows how important this can still be after an 11-year hiatus.