Outré
1. Moil
2. Abysmill
3. Heirships
4. Omnipotent Crawling Chaos
5. Black Houses
6. Outre
7. 13 Globes
8. Sourlows
Band:
The Curator - Vocals
Illogium (formerly called KnowMad) - Lead guitar
Aphotic - Rhythm guitar
Phathom Conspicuous - Bass
Ignis Fatuus - Drums
Discography:
Seepia 2003
Outré 2007
Links:
portalabode.com
myspace
profoundlorerecords
Review added to the site 2008-07-11
©2008, Hallowed.se
Musically Portal falls under the very extreme part of the metal community, they play hard and heavy with blazing fast riffs and evil blasting drums and powerful baselines and other dark and evil. As for an exotic dark Australian sound, I cannot find it as the sound doesn’t really give away where the band belongs. That is something that cannot be seen as a positive note, but for the real deal you will know more as you read on.
It is not only the musical side of the songs that matters, a record is always produced and a good production is a very important side of the music. When it comes to the production all I can say is that it is adequate, it does what it is supposed to and it works for the kind of music we have in front of us. As you can probably understand the sound is not very polished or plastic or anything like that, it is dark, heavy and raw, nothing else. And it is nothing extraordinary that makes you stop and think “hey, what’s this?” It is what it is and it is adequate.
This review is not only one record, it is actually two re-releases of not very old records to boot. The reason I use one review for two record is because it means that I don’t have to write two reviews that look pretty much the same and as the prior part of the sentence mean: they are very similar, not much difference between the records. It is much easier for both me and you with that setup.
Now to the quality of the records, as I have already hinted, this band is not really that interesting, they are actually not that portal to another dimension as a reviewer hinted, and it is not beyond metal, this is just the same as everything else in the genre, nothing more or less. When reading these notes on atmospheres and portals I was thinking in the lines of Opeth, but boy was I disappointed when I heard the album, it was absolutely dull. It is without character and interest, there are no magical portals to other dimensions. I can’t see anything unique or something beyond metal, all those words and superlatives are absolutely misplaced, or are they? Maybe this all shows how different we are in our likings and opinions about the musical offerings. I am not impressed at all.
Can’t really say anything positive about these two records, there is really nothing in this that impress me or that I find that I like, I am just totally bored and sometimes even disgusted when I listen. I don’t think complete boredom was what the band was looking for.
Not in any matter can I recommend this to anyone, if you like Morbid Angel and their likes, you will probably find this interesting but if you don’t you will probably not like this either. I am inclined to say that this is complete crap and the only portal I can see in this is the one leading instantly into the bin.
HHHHHHH
