Think of most strains of heavy metal and you’ll find in each sub-genre’s sonic characteristics a pretty clear reflection of the environment that spawned it. Black metal, with its frostbitten lo-fi production values and werewolf howl vocals vividly evokes the wintry climes and mystic allure of the Scandinavian woods. Thrash metal’s speed freakery and hyperactive obsession with the teenage totems of death, horror movies and gore is almost inseparable from mental images of skate ramps, spandex, and school desk graffiti.
There is nothing in Portal’s sound or aesthetic to indicate that these guys – who bear names as colourful as The Curator, Omenous Fugue and Horror Illogium – actually hail from the sunny sub-tropical climes of Queensland, Australia. Going solely by the nigh inscrutable sounds contained in their two latest masterworks Outre and Vexovoid, a better guess would be made for far, far outer space or deep underwater. Portal’s music is labelled as death metal but that’s mainly an estimation. This stuff is almost indiscernible, impossibly dense and heavy, atmospheric and just plain freaky; not so much the soundtrack to a horror/sci-fi film as the sounds one would hear inside a horror/sci-fi nightmare world. Make sure you give these guys about ten listens (the minimum required to get over the initial shock and disorientation) before passing judgment.
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