Playing live to New York City's Roseland, the British group Portishead delivers a great deal of passion and intimacy on their live CD, Roseland NYC Live. Sporting an enthusiastic crowd (clapping and singing along at parts), live DJs mixing and more grit in lead singer Beth Gibbons voice than any of the ultrapolished studio recordings this group has produced to date.

More than an Unplugged album would do, Portishead drew in conductor Nick Ingman a live symphony orchestra to compliment their own technogothic sound, bringing the sampled strings of a song like "Glory Box" gloriously alive with reverberation and resonance. The result is something you can dance to and something you can relax with.

Especially memorable are songs like "Sour Times," a new song from the band's constant touring in which Gibbons sings, howls and shouts as though the lyrics were being forcibly dragged and beaten from her. "Strangers" gets everybody in the act, with classical music meeting trip hop and jitterbugging the night away in a way no one could have expected, to thunderous applause. The creative tension of the original version of "Glory Box" was very strong (so much that the makers of the film Stealing Beauty included it on that powerful soundtrack), but with the added amplitude of an entire orchestra and the improvised changes gives the whole arrangement new life.

Portishead has spent so much time touring that their third album is still on the horizon. Roseland NYC Live is a tasty appetizer with enough new material to keep Portishead fans hungry for the yet-to-be-announced main course.