Pitchfork

Front page photo by Eva Vermandel

People of the world, Gloomsday hath cometh. Break out the black raiment, finesse those frowns, and purge your minds of all happy thoughts come April 28 (UK) and April 29 (U.S.), as those are the dates we can now expect Portishead to unleash their latest paean to pain and misery, Third.

The April 28 UK unveiling is updated from a previously reported April 14 release date, while the April 29 U.S. date is entirely new. Mercury/Island will ensure Third finds a place on record store racks, which haven't seen a Portishead disc of any kind since 1998's live offering PNYC.

A lot has changed in 10 years, but Portishead's penchant for parsimonious song titles apparently hasn't. The tracklist for Third, printed in full below, is comprised almost entirely of single- and double-word names; it also includes all those enticing-sounding tracks the Pop Group's Mark Stewart recently sampled.

And how about that cover up there? Beauty in simplicity, I suppose.

Portishead's European trek begins March 26 in Portugal, and the trio has added A Hawk and a Hacksaw and Kling Klang as support on mutually exclusive dates. They'll also headline Coachella on April 26, and let's hope that's but the beginning of their travels on these shores this year.

Third:

01 Silence
02 Hunter
03 Nylon Smile
04 The Rip
05 Plastic
06 We Carry On
07 Deep Water
08 Machine Gun
09 Small
10 Magic Doors
11 Threads

Twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, thirtieth, etc.:

03-26 Porto, Portugal - Coliseum *
03-27 Lisbon, Portugal - Coliseum *
03-30 Milan, Italy - Alcatraz *
03-31 Florence, Italy - Sashall *
04-02 Munich, Germany - Tonhalle #
04-03 Berlin, Germany - Columbiahalle #
04-04 Copenhagen, Denmark - KB Halle #
04-06 Cologne, Germany - Palladium #
04-07 Amsterdam, Netherlands - HMH #
04-09 Manchester, England - Apollo *
04-10 London, England - Hammersmith Apollo *
04-12 Edinburgh, Scotland - Corn Exchange *
04-13 Wolverhampton, England - Civic *
04-17 London, England - Brixton Academy *
04-26 Indio, CA - Empire Polo Field (Coachella)
05-05 Paris, France - Zenith #
05-06 Paris, France - Zenith #
05-08 Brussels, Belgium - Forest National #
05-29-31 Barcelona, Spain - Parc del Fòrum (Primavera Sound)

* with A Hawk and a Hacksaw
# with Kling Klang