Not until two minutes into "Silence," the first track from Portishead's long-awaited new album Third, do we hear the first ghostly lyrics from reclusive singer Beth Gibbons: "Tempted in our minds / tormented inside life / Wounded and afraid—inside my head." And it's immediately obvious that there will be little if any departure from her band's signature down tempo gloom. Ten years after the release of their last recording, 1998's Roseland NYC Live, it's clear the Bristol trio haven't cheered up ... at all.

But that's not necessarily a criticism.

Portishead's haunted atmospherics were never meant to enliven—their stock in trade is reflective, nighttime music built for headphones rather than clubs. The only notable difference here is the update to the group's sonic template. While still relying mostly on electronics, the band dispatches almost completely with the turntable elements that led critics to dub their sound "trip-hop" in the '90s. Cuts and scratches are replaced with crisp, minimal production—several of Third's tracks subsist only on simple guitar loops or gently tweaked drum patterns. Sinister love song "Nylon Smile," for instance, sets Gibbons' gauzy vocals atop a reverse-looped beat (a lá Kid A-era Radiohead) and "The Rip" rides a plucky acoustic guitar before transforming into a pulsating synth track.

Third's careful production, whose closest relative might be German electro-pop act The Notwist, displays new facets of the band and helps cover ground lost in their extended hiatus. The best example of their updated approach is standout track "We Carry On," a brilliant mixture of insistent synths, post-punk guitars, and of course, Gibbons' unearthly vocals.

Not everything on the record sounds as accomplished as that track, though. Just after Third's halfway point comes "Deep Water," a throwaway ballad that reveals the album's only real flaw: gloom overload. When Gibbons lazily croons "I'm drifting in deep waters / alone with my self-doubting again," the macabre shtick feels tired. And this is probably a petty, geeks-only complaint, but we also take issue with Third's release month. Like Burial's recent Untrue, this is undoubtedly a wintertime record—one to hunker down with during the frigid months—so it seems almost ridiculous to drop it at the onset of spring. [Editor's note: Agreed—geeks-only complaint.]

Then again, April has already seen well-received returns from REM and The Breeders, two acts who enjoyed commercial and critical success with Portishead in the '90s. Third also comes at a time when electronica—a genre long-misunderstood by Americans—has finally come close to finding a stateside fanbase. Will it succeed next to the floor-shaking anthems of say, Justice? It's hard to say. Surely helping their own cause, the album, taken as a whole, is as good as anything they've done so far.