Portishead (Handout)

You could argue that '90s British trip-hop vets Portishead move at a glacial pace given they've only released three studio albums, including their 1994 breakthrough debut Dummy.

In fact, the group -- made up of evocative singer Beth Gibbons and multi-instumentalists and producers Adrian Utley and Geoff Barrow -- are touring select North American dates for the first time in more than 10 years.

So what gives?

"It's pretty slow as you gathered," said Utley down the line from his home in Bristol recently.

"It's not like we don't work; no one ever stops. It's just how it is. I mean taking a big break out (between 1999-2005) just happened because we'd been touring like crazy, we'd done two records. I think what we do, we try to make it for real every time. I'm sure all bands do. But there's no way that we'd ever put an album out that we weren't 100% happy with.

"When we come together to do Portishead, it's a kind of a world that we enter and we go in through that door and we don't come out for a few years and it's a really intense one when you go in. On the road it's not easy. I know bands that don't even do soundchecks. They just turn up and they'll play. Their crew does everything for them but we take care of every single thing. So its pretty full on, always. By the end of it we're like, 'That's enough of that for a bit.' "

When the group touches down on Canadian soil this week for the first of three dates -- Montreal's Jacques Cartier Pier on Thursday, Toronto's Sound Academy on Sunday and Monday, and Oct. 24 at Vancouver's PNE Forum -- they'll be touring in support of Third, an album that dates back to 2008, which saw them primarily tour Europe.

"There was a whole load of stuff, particularly Beth wanted to do in her life, outside of all of us. It's about families and all sorts of stuff like that, and there just wasn't time to tour, which was a drag. But that's how it was; we made that decision and that's why we're touring now without an album," said Utley.

"Well, it's not without an album -- it's our last album ... We never did do enough, and it's a way of us being back in the saddle, if you like, for ourselves, not just for the world, but just to play places we've never played and re-affirm our confidence in ourselves."

Utley -- who counts Radiohead, New York's Liars and Montreal's God Speed You Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion among his current fave bands -- says Portishead have recorded one new song, Chase the Tear for Amnesty International (giving away the publishing and royalties to the agency for the rest of time) and will head back into the studio in January.

They are also well warmed up having come off festival dates in Europe including Eastern Bloc dates in Poland and Hungary this summer.

"It's really exciting," said Utley, whose girlfriend has relatives in Toronto. "We just did these festivals and they're really, really big, like 30,000 to 50,000 people, which is mad. So I'm really looking forward to coming to America and Canada and doing our own gigs where we've got more control of the situation, really."

Utley a man of many talents

When Adrian Utley isn't writing, recording and touring with Bristol trip-hop band Portishead, he's an eclectic producer, writer and player for hire and also composes film scores.

Currently, he's about to play with Aphex Twin at a Steve Wright festival in Krakow; has written with Goldfrapp's Will Gregory for the silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc, which will see him and 22 other musicians perform live at Lincoln Centre in New York; is composing a film soundtrack for a short film in Bristol based on a Will Self short story; is playing a version of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells in London and is producing a French band in Paris.

"I sort of say yes to lots of things and then end up in all that," said Utley. "I think it's quite good for us to dip in and out of a few other things as long as they're not giant projects, and other albums. It kind of feeds us."

PORTISHEAD CANADIAN DATES:

October 7 -- Jacques Cartier Pier, Montreal

October 9-10 -- Sound Academy, Toronto

October 24 -- PNE Forum, Vancouver