Portishead

Spin (1/98, p.86) - Ranked #6 on Spin's list of the "Top 20 Albums Of The
Year."
Village Voice (2/24/98) - Ranked #14 in the Village Voice's 1997 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll.
Q Magazine (1/98, p.114) - Included in Q Magazine's "50 Best Albums of 1997."
Melody Maker (12/20-27/97, pp.66-67) - Ranked #18 on Melody Maker's list of 1997's "Albums Of The Year."
New Musical Express (12/20-27/97, pp.78-79) - Ranked #32 in NME's 1997 Critics' Poll.
Rolling Stone (10/2/97, p.56) - 3 Stars (out of 5) - "...the group easily re-establishes its mastery of the genre now known as trip-hop....Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley have refined their sound to an instantly identifiable essence..."
Spin (11/97, p.142) - 9 (out of 10) - "...Like every brilliantly dismal act from Screamin' Jay Hawkins to the Wu-Tang Clan, Portishead tiptope across a ledge where utter seriousness is one false move away from tragic self-parody. They manage the high-wire act with brittle grace, bitter poise. And they sound as if they could break at any second..."
Musician (11/97, p.86) - "...Gibbons' extraordinary voice has grown darker, nastier, and more spine-tingling, while the new songs vary from grim...to serene....PORTISHEAD looks over the cliff, then dives headlong into the abyss..."
Melody Maker (10/4/97, p.50) - "...deep fried, delightful doom music....they're still...the original flames, the instigators, the innovators and still the only sure soundtrack to the future."

New Musical Express (9/27/97, p.57) - 8 (out of 10) - "...if DUMMY was smoky film noir material, this is a choking Hammer Horror ho-ho-free hoedown....wavering, painfully sensitive choruses, desperately distorted soundscapes and good old-fashioned tunes..."
Entertainment Weekly (10/03/97, p.84) - "...This sophomore spook-athon from chilly U.K. combo Portishead clanks across the attic, via Geoff Barrow's skeletal samples and funereal keyboards. Beth Gibbons' surgical-steel voices slices into her partner's scraps of musical meat, for an effect that's hypnotic, bloodless, and addictive..." - Rating: A
Vibe (11/97, p.152) - "...Beth Gibbons shows off stark vocal mood swings as she croons and claws under a bitter moon. A 30-piece orchestra keeps you strung out on drama, while producers/bandmates Adrian Utley and Geoff Barrow snap out the beats..."
The Source (11/97, p.174) - "...crafted with care and eloquence, and somehow articulating the space that exists between the emotional and the physical....Portishead succeed with aplomb on their eponymously-titled follow-up album..."