Portal are a band from Sweden that plays a viking form of melodic black/death metal and this is a review of their 2014 album "For All That Is Damned to Vanish" which was released by Vic Records.
The album starts out with some fast melodic death metal guitar riffs and drums and a few seconds alter black metal screams and growls are thrown into the music along with a mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts as well as some blast beats and a few minutes later solos are added into the music as well as some clean singing.
As the album progresses a good amount of catchy melodies are added into the music along with some mid 90's early 2000's melodic Swedish death metal influences and the last beats also start getting more powerful in the other songs as well as the melodic vocals bringing in elements of viking metal and you can also hear some modern melodic death metal elements being added into the music.
On the fourth song Acoustic guitars are added into the recording and they also help enhance the Viking and Pagan elements of the record as well as bring in some medieval sounds but the music on the album focuses mainly on the heavy and melodic parts and when spoken word parts are added in the music starts utilizing a more war like feeling.
On this recording the band shows a lot of skill and talent with the way they can mix heaviness, brutality and melody together and they also take an old school sound an mix in some modern elements to make the music sound a lot more powerful.
Song lyrics cover Mysticism, Viking/Norse Mythology and Anti Christian themes, while the production has a very strong, powerful, heavy and professional sound along with the bass guitars being mixed down low in the mix.
In my opinion Portal are a very great sounding melodic viking black/death metal band and if you are a fan of this musical genre, you should check out this album. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "In The Steps of Forgotten Gods" "The Wild And Furious" "In Chase For The Sun" and "Kamp". RECOMMENDED BUY.
| iTunes |
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
