PORTAL

The tracks however appear on "Lurker at the Threshold" in quite different versions than the versions which are featured on "Outre'". Here they appear in more detailed, less chaotic/dark atmospheric, and much less abstract versions, which are arguably easier to follow. I would never call Portal accessible, but this is by far one of their most accessible releases as a result of how defined the instruments are in the soundscape and the generally less murky nature of the sound production. The riffs are still chaotic, brutal, and dissonant, so in that respect Portal are as unconventional and sometimes downright odd as usual. The growling vocals appear low in the mix and they ultimately add more texture than punch and aggression.

So upon conclusion "Lurker at the Threshold" is for those who are interested in Portal, but just can´t penetrate and appreciate their usual murky and suffocating take on death metal. This is still a highly experimental, and at times avant-garde type of death metal (..."The Sourlows" is for example a really weird track), but the sound production makes this sound a little more normal...at least occasionally. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

Stylistically Portal continue to play their cacophonous, dissonant, murky, and almost avant-garde death metal style and "The Sweyy" is a natural successor to "Seepia". The sound production is maybe a little more clear than the case was on the preceding album, but since it´s Portal we´re talking about, you should of course not expect anything clean or sterile sounding. This is still murky, brutal, raw, and filthy death metal, which is both unusual in structure, and anarchistic in the way it´s performed. Think how Incantation would sound if they were put through an avant-garde grinder and played even more raw and extreme death metal than they already do. Both the opening title track and "Werships" sound like that, but "Doors" is an experimental noise/sound effect track. An eerie atmospheric instrumental track which could well be used as a horror movie soundtrack. The two live tracks are lo-fi recorded and they are so murky and raw that you´re not really able to hear what´s going on. Not a great way to end the EP.

"The Sweyy" is both a hard and a harsh listen and like everything Portal have ever done it´ll make some people confused and terrified, while others will devour the foulness, the chaos, and the adventurous progressive nature of the music. The two new original studio tracks are great, "Doors" is dragging and lasts too long, while the two live tracks feature a sub par live recording quality, so the EP is actually a bit hard to rate, but a 3 star (60%) rating isn´t all wrong.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

So the versions of "Tempus Fugit" and "The End Mills" found on this EP can be viewed as rough early versions of the tracks. No less powerful, dark, chaotic, and mysterious than the versions found on "Seepia" though, as Portal already this early on presented their listeners with a dark, brutal, gloomy, and chatic take on death metal. dissonant, abstract, and suffocating in nature, Portal sought to break down boundaries, and they succeed pretty well doing that with the material featured on "The End Mills". Although I wrote rough early versions of the full-length studio versions of the tracks found on "Seepia", these EP versions are actually a bit more accessible and "normal" than the even more chaotic and murky produced versions on "Seepia".

"The End Mills" is a great introduction to early Portal, although it´s mostly for the completists since both tracks from the EP are also available on "Seepia". As mentioned these early versions are also quite interesting and great too though, so in my opinion "The End Mills" is still worth a listen or two. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

It´s obvious from the lo-fi sound quality, and the fact that the music only features guitars, low-in-the mix drum programming (I didn´t even notice that the demo featured drums until the middle of the first track, when the guitars took a break. They mostly just sound like a distant rumble), and gruff growling vocals. There are signs in the unconventional nature of the guitar riffs that Portal were on to something unique already this early on, but other than that, this is probably not a demo originally meant for the public ear, but more for the band members to hear their songwriting ideas on tape.

Featuring 3 tracks and a total playing time of 10:01 minutes the listener is given enough time to evaluate and understand Portal´s brutal, dissonant, chaotic, and suffocating vision of how death metal should be played. The fact that it sounds mostly like a guitar only demo with the occassional vocals on top, makes it a bit hard to listen to for enjoyment, so this is more an interesting release than a great one. A 1.5 star (30%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

While the band would release its first self-titled demo as early as 1998, it wouldn't be until 2003 that PORTAL its first bonafide album "Seepia" hit the scene which showcased the band's unique display of seamlessly merging the worlds of technical death metal with the atmospheric bleakness of black metal. Unconventional arrangements, eerie atmospheric backdrops and a bombastic explosive delivery of blitzkrieg instrumentation made "Seepia" stand out like a sore thumb in the world of death metal that had in many ways become more formulaic as it became more popular. While the debut delivered a thunderous display of avant-garde death metal wizardry, the band was not happy with the outcome citing that the desire to weave in the atmospheric elements was unsuccessful due to the incessant pummelation of the senses displayed by guitarist Horror Illogium, original bassist Werm and drum abuser Ignis Fatuus.

The band spent the next few years honing its craft with a couple EPs before unleashing its masterwork, OUTRE, a title that literally means bizarre, eccentric and freakishly bizarre. This sophomore album found PORTAL coming of age with a much more expansive approach that took the world of technical death metal even further down the avant-garde rabbit hole. By this time the band had expanded to a quintet fronted by the eccentric chief growler The Curator who freakishly donned an executioner's mask. Aphotic Mote joined Horror Illogium as the second guitarist and likewise bassist Elsewhere and newbie drummer Monocular joined the PORTAL team to craft one of the most startlingly mondo bizarro death metal dominant albums that the early 2000s had to offer. While initially inspired by the likes of Morbid Angel, Beherit and Immolation, PORTAL had expanded its sound into a world all its own which was as dystopian and far removed from what many would deem traditional old school death metal as one could possibly fathom at this point.

OUTRE wastes no time establishing its atmospheric presence with the short dark ambient intro "Moil" which cedes to the dissonant noise ferocity of "Abysmill" by implementing the same aggressive bombast as "Seepia" but with more nuance. While "Seepia" was a blitzkrieg of excesses, OUTRE immediately establishes an immediate emphasis on crafting a streamlined horrorscape of sound that features a more controlled restraint. A concerted effort to give each instrument its own role is the biggest leap of ingenuity on OUTRE with slow creeping bass lines, snare drum repetition and twin guitar dualities including slow slinking moments closer to doom metal than the world of frenetic death metal. The album also offers dark ambient interludes that connect tracks and place them into a more logical cohesive context which allows the Lovecraftian themes to bask in their own marinated ebullience. While the focus on atmosphere may have been firmly established, OUTRE refused to jettison the bantering sonic onslaught of fast reckless guitar riffing and resolute devotion to adrenalized speed rushes.

The band also developed menacing guitar tones that coupled with noisy production values offered and even further detachment from conventional death metal techniques, a term that some have referred to as "caverncore.". Even The Curator's vocal growls defied death metal conventionalities and lay somewhere between the emphatic raspiness of avant-garde black metal bands like Deathspell Omega and the guttural growls that death metal enthusiasts had become accustomed to. Attention to slower oozing bleakness as the emphasis allowed the aggressive elements to offer a more intricate contrast which heightened the surreal soundscapes even further. The use of varying tempos and moments of sluggish vagrancy allowed the atmospheric constructs to pierce the din and cast an overall tension that "Seepia" lacked. The album finds oddball moments such as the 2 1/2 minute title track that escape the world of all established metal norms and features a noisy display of unnerving chaotic din only to be followed by the most aggressive moments on "13 Globes" which reprise the "Seepia" styled pummelation effect only dripping in compositional unconventionalities and atonal dissonant guitar assaults.

In all its aggressive dissonant din OUTRE proved revolutionary in crafting a strange new style of death metal based extremism that utilized the technical aspects and abrasiveness of the world of death metal and married it with the atmospheric potentials that the world of black metal offered. The album straddles a strange line between many strains of metal and even adopts some of the characteristic of war metal in a battle-like procession into strange Lovecraftian realities where everything familiar seems twisted, mangled and intangibly mutilated into unrecognizable yet discernible patterns of technical wizardry. OUTRE is the album that put PORTAL on the world's stage and it has become one of those landmark moments that prognosticated an entirely new strain of dissonant death metal bands that would follow. In the 2020s this may not sound as extreme with bands like Ulcerate, Gigan, Pyrrhon and Ad Nauseam having followed the lead but back in 2007 when this was released it really did take extreme metal into some of the strangest places yet experienced. This one is a grower. It took me a while and many listening experiences to wrap my ahead around it but after several years of soaking it in, i have to say that is is a cream of the crop release in the world of avant-garde metal.

Many bands have released ambient and industrial albums under alter egos. Neurosis did it with the Tribes of Neurot albums, Burzum released entire albums of just dungeon synth and Ulver went one further by dropping its metal persona altogether and transmogrifying into an electronic experimental band completely. Whatever the case, this is really nothing out of the ordinary but i doubt anyone was expecting a wildly electric and eclectic band like PORTAL to go this route. Unlike some such albums released simultaneously with a more standard album, HAGBULBIA isn't really one to be played with the primary album as it sounds completely independent in its own little world.

Basically what we have here is PORTAL's chaotic ambient and atmospheric sound effects without the accompanying technical death metal. It's the closest thing you get to naked and unstripped PORTAL as you can imagine and HAGBULBIA gives a bit of insight into the sound effects and production techniques that often are accompanied by the extreme metal which give it that hazed over atmospheric doom and gloom effect. Given that PORTAL's music is basically a mix of chaos meets some sort of order albeit complex avant-garde order, HAGBULBIA features the chaotic side of the equation and is really nothing more than 38 minutes of dark ambient fueled blackened death industrial sounds with swirling and often gurgling motifs of swarming sonorities accompanied by what sounds like vocal gargling and eerie splashes, looped static serving as percussion and other scary sound effects.

There is really no rhyme or reason to this one as it is simply a length procession of dark and disturbing sounds that are tweaked to emulate the scariest sounds possible and if there was ever a perfect candidate for a soundtrack for a Halloween party or dungeon then this is probably it. There are very faint aspects of metal especially on the track "Weptune" where you can here a death metal guitar riff try to break free from the turbulent noise above it but it is quickly subdued and thus thrown back into its cage. Really, the whole thing sounds like a frequency war in the bowels of hell! The scant vocal utterances keep it all from sounding too pointless and subdued aspects of "regular" PORTAL albums seem to provide just enough support from beneath the surface to keep this existing in the PORTAL universe.

This one is probably too much for even hardcore PORTAL fans and i have to admit that this is not the PORTAL i signed up for but to be fair, as a creepy ambient industrial album that evokes death and disease and utter despair, this one is quite a nasty sounding beast and therefore it has me intrigued to say the least! While i don't consider this form of "music" my main staple, as supplemental sound it does have its appeal and if you are one of the tiny few who finds PORTAL's regularly scheduled program to be a bit tame (does anyone think that?!!) then this will take all those deranged atmospheric mind [%*!#]s to the next level. Disturbing and deranged, this really does hit the spot for the most manic and chaotic swarms of sound ever recorded and for that i kinda like it but for your own safety do not listen on a regular basis or else!

3.5 rounded down

Stylistically PORTAL has remained rather consistent in its razor-sharp tech death metal assaults laced with ominous atmospheres since it debuted with 2003's "Seepia" but really focused heavily on the possibilities of unorthodox production processes and even more crazed compositional experimentation when the band really set things in motion with 2007's "Outre." AVOW looks back to "Outre" after flirting with elements of thrash metal and more straight forward death metal moments on albums like "Vexovoid" and "ION." To be honest i'm a connoisseur of all these mind-blowing experimental approaches but i consider this psycho blend of tech death acumen with atmospheric creepery to be PORTAL's specialty and in that regard AVOW does not disappoint one little bit and offers a return to form in that direction.

While AVOW arrives three years after the band's previous efforts, the year 2021 actually sees not one but two new PORTAL releases. AVOW is accompanied by "Hagbulbia" which takes the most abrasive and terrifying aspects of the dark ambient, noise and death / black ambient elements and takes them to the limit only devoid of the metal elements which still dominate on AVOW. Like any reasonable band, PORTAL doesn't deviate too far from the formula that got them noticed in the first place and there is nothing on AVOW that will either initiate new members to cult or scare established followers away. In many ways AVOW is actually sort of a retreat to the comfort zone of "Ouvre" which wasn't carried on to the following "Swarth" but even though PORTAL retains the expected elements which make them who they are, the band still is careful to craft each album distinctly as not to sound like simple retreads.

No doubt about it that PORTAL is an acquired taste reserved only for the most adventurous musical explorers who crave the most outrageous qualities of avant-prog, dark ambient, extreme technical metal and atonally ominous emotional feedback. PORTAL wastes no time with the opening "Catalfalque" which sounds like a swarm of restless poltergeists hungry for warfare with pummeling blastbeasts, incessant dissonant guitar and bass riffs and dark, brooding and even claustrophobic vocal utterances from the one and only The Curator. While sounding like an amorphous army of demons sporadically spewing hate in a haphazard rampage, somehow the band manages to keep an avant-groove behind the scenes from allowing the entire thing to collapse in an insufferable heap.

It's fairly difficult to convey what PORTAL sounds like in words. This is truly the soundtrack of nightmares and many make may claim that this isn't even music as it's pretty much taken every possible element of more popular forms of musical composure and has thrown them out the window and that even includes the world of established extreme metal genera. While tech death metal is the closest thing to a tag you can conjure up, PORTAL must be experienced in all its wriggling noisy mayhem as the band deftly walks that tightrope act between composition and pure chaos but few bands deliver the goods in such an utterly satisfying manner. Too extreme even for many extreme metal heads, PORTAL remains defiantly a darkened underground act that AVOW will not erase as there is absolutely nothing on board that would suggest that PORTAL is on the verge of selling out. This is sonic terror metal from beginning to end and the kind of stuff that scratches that itch when everything else just seems too predictable and for that i gladly take this journey into the noise metal dimension.

This EP contains 5 tracks, 3 new studio tracks, 2 of which ('Werships' and the title track) would be reworked and appear on the third album 'Swarth.'

The last 2 tracks are live performances from the Bloodlust III Festival in 2003. Both 'Atmoblisters' and 'Transcending A Mere Multiverse' were taken from the debut album 'Seepia.'

The studio tracks of the EP would also find their way onto a split with the band Rites Of Thy Degringolade titled 'The Sweyy / Our Dreadful Spire.'

The only track that never would appear elsewhere in any form is 'Doors.'

The studio tracks continue the same brutal and technical blackened death metal submerged in a dark ambient atmosphere and comes off as some of the most surreal tech death metal to be experienced, however the riffs are slowed down a bit from 'Seepia' and don't sound as chaotic. These are clearly easier to follow than the unrelenting bantering and jagged zigzagging delivery of the debut.

The live tracks display the band in a reverberant concert setting which shows an adaptation of the surreal extreme metal quite well to perform in front of a audience. Absent are the ethereal and otherworldly production effects that exude dark ambient doom and gloom but on the metal side of the equation they deliver the bizarre formless compositions exquisitely without missing a beat. Only the audience screams at the end reveal a live setting.

This is one of those that's interesting to experience but not particularly essential either since nothing on here is better than the studio albums that sandwich it. Well worth a listen or two for fans as it's played quite well and offers an insight into another dimension of the band's music but hardly a must-have.

While following in the steps of bands like Gorguts and Morbid Angel, musically speaking, these guys take the distorted guitar riffing of death metal, black metal lo-fi production and turn them into experimental formless rhythms that ebb and flow like a Salvador Dalí painting exploding into a million pieces not to mention the bizarre dark ambient segments that begin each track as they melt your mind before pummeling it with bombastic bantering bliss.

With a name like PORTAL, one can expect a type of sound that transports you far away into interdimensional hyperdrive, like a wormhole inside a jackhammer that sounds as if a tsunami has devastated an electrical plant and all that remains are hissing sizzling live wire cables flailing around like freshly decapitated chickens on a poultry farm. One can hardly find music so off-kilter that's it's practically impossible for the non-initiated to grasp any bearings whatsoever.

Yes, this will surely come of as the most chaotic of noise for even lovers of melodic death metal. This "music" is a formless, chaotic glob of intensity that wriggles around at speeds so dizzying that one could easily lose one's soul in the process. This is the kind of musical madness that is designed to overwhelm the senses, to suffocate the soul, to reign terror and destruction into the hearts of mankind and ultimately succeeds profusely.

SEEPIA is utterly brilliant in how it takes protoplasm shaped dark ambient sounds that struggle to remain stationary as they pulsate and melt into oblivion only to be replaced by the pyrotechnic bombast of the swirling undulation of death metal pummelation. The sole exception to this formula is the completely dark ambient "Antiquate" which preludes the entirely tech death finale "The EndMills."

PORTAL devilishly portended an entirely new slice of tech death metal in 2003 with SEEPIA as they effortlessly amalgamated the most surreal aspects of dark ambient and applied them to an extreme metal context. While bands like Esoteric tread similar arenas in the context of funeral doom metal, PORTAL provided the proper entry into the quickened and unforgiving alienating worlds of psychotically derived death metal taken into wildly psychedelic and insanely unnerving worlds. This is a short album just short of 32 minutes.

While criticized for what some deem a lackluster production, the band has stated that this very production is what allows the effervescence of the swirls of sound to all emerge from the volcanic explosive underbelly of the beast. If the metal were catapulted into the forefront, all the freakiness would be buried beneath the din. The production is quite unique and most evokes the raw and primeval aspects of underground metal. If surreal extreme metal is what you're craving, then PORTAL will help you drift off into unimaginable worlds where absolutely nothing is what you expect it be, except perhaps disturbing.

As the intro track "Nth" slinks into existence as if a subtle hazy brume has wafted into your room, the ghostly fortifications of muffled tortured screams emulate with backmasked effects creating a dark ambient horrorshow soundtrack and thus insinuating a return to the impenetrable layers of atmospheric darkness that had created their wickedly new realm for extreme tech death metal. However, as the first blistering notes of "ESP ION AGE" rage into the scene, we are confronted with a new interdimensional rage and fury usually reserved for only the most brutal of death metal beasts more often heard in bands like Suffocation, however the angular nature and complete detachment from traditional old school standards allows a sepulchral wall of sound that allows each wailing formless riff to pierce the soul like a dagger flaying a adrenaline fueled beating heart. Add the pummeling relentless percussive overdrive with groaning guttural growls and the divinity of chaos has been reached.

The name ION is a fitting title if you know chemistry. An ION is an atom or a molecule with a non-zero net electrical charge, meaning it is either positive or negative and very susceptible to energy changes thus creating a potential for massive instability. As such PORTAL have constructed the perfect soundtrack for a state of energy easily activated by entropic changes and thus erratic and unpredictable shifts in magnetic fields. The noises emerging from the freneticism of the guitar, bass and drums are tantamount to the ionizing effect of a built up electrical charge bolting down from the thundering skies above with pulverizing consequences for any hapless atoms in the line of fire. PORTAL simulates the same sort of lightning bolt reality with jagged undulating waves of sound that capture brutal metal instrumentation in flux with atmospheric dungeony bleakness.

PORTAL remains an enigmatic and mysterious beast. Graced with faced masks and alter egos (such as The Curator on vocals and Horror Illogium on lead guitar), the band more than lives up to this alienating image with the brutal angularity and interdimensional avant-garde compositional constructs of ION. Once the dark ambient intro cedes into the frenetic chaotic metal meltdown the album remains relentless in its caustic between-realities surrealism that culminates in the harsh noise sonic terrorism of the instrumental "Spores" and then after one more shovel in the face with "Phathom" ends the album with the psychically damaging metaphysical dark ambient horror theme outro of "Old Guarde."

While many tech death bands try to deliver the goods by creating sonic impressions of otherworldly atmospheres and moods, nobody does it quite like PORTAL. Perhaps the strange landscapes of their land down under have given them an alternative view on reality where their angular riffs shape shift like restless sands in the great deserts that cover most of their homeland. Whatever the case, PORTAL have perfected their sonic surrealistic terrorism with nine undulating tracks that despite sounding like no other band, remain utterly distinct from each other as one seemingly formless riff frenzy somehow ekes out a series of recognizable patterns that barely allow it to be classified as music as if the band are in the process of creating a whole new grammatical paradigm for death metal. One that the listener learn this new diabolical language and lexicon before being admitted to the club. Yes, this is an acquired taste reserved for only the seekers of the most technical sort of earache music possible, but if that's what you crave, PORTAL delivers like a charm.

4.5 but rounded down