Portal
For All That is Damned to Vanish

Do you think you are damned to vanish, then this is your album as it is for you who are damned to vanish. Portal is a swedish quartet, they share the name of a very bad band from Australia, maybe you have read a review of them here at Hallowed. This Portal is a band I haven’t heard before, they were founded almost 20 years ago in 1996 and have recorded one album before this one and it was released in 2001. So the quartet can be described as a bit unproductive when it comes to releasing albums. But then again, they might just be taking their time producing the best that could ever be. So lets se what’s what.

We get melodic death metal, quite heavy and tempo filled. Classic death metal riffing and smattering drums. Pretty tame vocals though, they sound weak and is often overpowered by the rest of what we hear on the album. I like bands interesting and unique, with an own touch and all of that. These guys do not offer anything of these, they do however offer a good production done by some skilled guys in what the label describes as a legendary studio. I think they tick all the right boxes that should be ticked to perform in this genre. At the same time maybe they should have tried to move a little bit outside the box to make it a little bit more interesting but keeping it short with 37 minutes and nine tracks is a sensible thing to do.

I think that this album is quite alright, the songs are decent, the production and melodies are good. It is a fairly listenable album overall. It is also a quite boring album, in that there is nothing here that we haven’t heard before. And they aren’t doing anything better than most other bands, I think this album suffers from a case of being too generic. An ordinary melodic death metal album, nothing really brilliant or exciting just a well performed, dull and ordinary album.

At least they are way better than their namesakes from Australia, and they are not bad. Although I am not sure wether a band like to be called bad more than uninteresting because this is what these guys are. This album have been played through a dozen times now and I am still at the same position as I was the first time I heard it. It starts out very well, then it slows down and becomes very static. A static album, well performed album that might appeal to fans of the genre but I doubt it will appeal to anyone else.

HHHHHHH