- Record Label: Go Beat / Sanctuary
- Release Date: Oct 7, 2003
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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The WireSome of Out Of Season's lyrics are almost too impossibly idealistic and airy fairy to carry off. [#226, p.54]
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On Out of Season, Gibbons' voice takes the spotlight. There's a quivery sound, similar to Billie Holiday's, which gets lost amid Portishead's stops and starts.
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Out of Season creates a dreamily sinister otherworld that's both vintage and timeless. [Amazon UK review]
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Out Of Season is both a remarkable record of beautiful music, and an outstanding, awe-inspiring performance inducing near-irresistible feelings and sensations. This album is a sublime example of the art of the singer, and of the art of music.
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The icing on the cake is in the little details.
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Filter"Autumnal" is the word everybody wants to use to describe this record, but that's wrong.... Out of Season has much mor eto do with winter than it does with anything so tame as the fall. [#8, p.106]
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Q MagazineAnother like this and people will struggle to remember she was ever in another band. [Dec 2002, p.98]
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That Out of Season leaves an imprint, and a powerfully lasting one at that, is a testament to Gibbons’ carefully sculpted lyrics and her vocal interpretation of same, combined with Webb’s unobtrusive but no less vital studio work.
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Gibbons is a charismatic presence, her golden howl and misery-inflected tone recalling a cross between Billie Holiday and a demented Edith Piaf.
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This is adult music in the best sense of the phrase, emotionally sophisticated and uncompromising both in intent and delivery.
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Gibbons's failure to leave the likes of "And I only hear/Only hear the rain" and "Time is but a memory" in her notebook suggests one limitation of her songcraft.
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While it indeed works wonders in most places, it stumbles in a few, crossing over into an almost sickenly sweet radio-friendly territory that make me doubly wish for new Portishead material.
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MojoIt's among the best albums ever made. [Nov 2002, p.92]
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Replace crackling vinyl and subwoofer bass with somber piano and mournful cello, and all you're left with is... well, a pretty goddamn miserable woman who happens to have a great voice.
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Out Of Season makes Portishead's remarkable innovations sound like so much extra baggage to Gibbons' voice.
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Entertainment WeeklyThe songwriting isn't always as artful as the renderings. Yet, like Beck's Sea Change, it cultivates a seamless, sumptuous melancholy. [Listen 2 This supplement, Dec 2002, p.32]
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SpinIt's a set of torch songs to do Nico proud--some folkie, some neo-soul, all darker than your closet at midnight. [Oct 2003, p.113]
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BlenderOut Of Season's usefulness as ambience almost trumps its self-importance and paucity of standout material. [Dec 2003, p.136]
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MagnetGibbons' craft is making her desperate drama believable and compelling.... [But] the lack of memorable tunes is Gibbons' worst affliction. [#61, p.96]
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UrbDisarmingly intimate. [Dec 2003, p.87]
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UncutQuietly devastating. [Dec 2002, p.131]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 22 out of 26
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Mixed: 2 out of 26
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Negative: 2 out of 26
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Feb 20, 2021
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HeikkiHSep 27, 2005Truly amazing.
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JulieDOct 10, 2004Sublime!