PORTAL OF I

Australia's NeO (Ne Obliviscaris) have become quite a big name in their respective genre. Opeth's legacy is certainly strong with these guys, but the instrumentation and aesthetics are completely different. NeO brings a lot of new things to the table - most certainly the violin, which sometimes creates hauntingly beautiful melodies over heavy guitar riffing. The music underneath the melodies change often and in very surprisingly ways. This is one of the reasons it took me long to get into this record as well. Vocals used here are both clean and harsh, often joining together to build up a climax.

The album opens with the very black metallish 'Tapestry of Starless Abstract' which goes through many sections and different moods, finally setting into calm section in the later stages. This formula is used quite often in this record.

'Xenoflux' is the heaviest song on the album, going through a few extremely good riffs in the beginning while going to a very heavy growling section. The bass climax is quite wonderful here.

'Of the Leper Butteflies' is a shorter song. Not very memorable during first playthroughs but it's still quite a good track in the end. It goes through a wonderful bass tapping/melody section where the guitar provides nice support to the bass riffing and violin is used as a nice staccatto instrument in the backround. Very good songwriting here! The album centerpiece 'Forget Not' is a gorgeous piece of progressive metal, featuring clean vocal chants and wonderful violin work by Tim Charles. This is, along with 'Of Petrichor Weaves Black Noise', my favourite track.

'As Isicles Falls' is most certainly the weakest song on the album and considering the lenght of this debut, it should have been left out. I always skip this one as there is nothing exceptional here compared to the rest of the songs.

'Of Petrichor Weaves Black Noise' is a superb closer that creates wonderful athmosphere where the listener can sink into. Lot's of wonderful riffs and riff variation always progressing to somewhere different.

This album requires quite many listens to appreciate it fully. Many tracks feel disjointed at first and the growls feel often unnecessary. However the end result is very satisfactory and original piece of progressive metal that IMO deserves this high rating. This is much better than the next album (unfortunately). The drumming is also the weakest link of this album. Too much ridiculous double kick runs that often ruin the mood of a good section. A good drummer knows when to restrain himself and this album doesn't showcase anything other than his fast playing ability.

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