Sunday, February 17, 2013

Portal - Vexovoid

THE SAGA CONTINUES



At what point does music move to far past its logical extremes ? This is a question that may be answerable solely by the one and only Australian twisted geniuses better known as Portal. Vexovoid is the 4th release by the band that has made music a psychological weapon of mass mental deterioration. 

In the past the band has been able to conjure up images of twisted imagery through it's self imploding suffocating atmosphere and unconventional song structures, uncatchy music which often made you and I question what the hell was happening. None of of really got the answer, not a satisfactory one anyway. It's a question that no one can answer, except maybe the band itself.

So has anything changed for the band ? In a nutshell, umm.. No. So, is it still the same ? Well, almost. The band still has that suffocating atmosphere, inherent brutality, but they sound a bit calmer from the previous releases maybe. A bit calmer may not be suitable for this band, a bit less chaotic will be more apt. The band still sound like Immolation, Deathspell Omega and Gorguts put in a blender and the resultant music is being played backwards. The band still relies a lot on atmosphere, and by atmosphere I don't mean the kind of 'piano ambient spacey' atmosphere that new age crap extreme bands use so as to portray a feeling of depth and emotion, but a skullfucking, suffocating, raging I dont give a fuck relentless atmosphere, that the band has used continously to it's advantage in the past and continues to do so. They still don't care about philistinian things like melody and harmony. 


Vexovoid takes no time to get started, almost immediately throwing the listener down into a pit of nothingness. From the first track to the last moment of music here, there is a nearly unrelenting wave of harsh, abrasive sounds, with little- if any- respite to speak of. That being said, the effect of this sound is undeniable. The band has this brilliant habit of being able to make this Lovecraftian type unimaginable horror and convert into music and lay it down in front of you almost daring you to take a bite off of it.

Portal is nothing like anything you have heard before. This is metal for the weird. This is metal which is not for the weak hearted. This is metal, as it was supposed to be, an art, an expression of oneself without caring about the listener. This is not metal which cares about the convention which is considered the norm. This is not metal that cares about production. Really, if after creating an image like this if you think that this is a band that caters to the needs to people who will bitch about production or not being enjoyable or fun or catchy, and if really that is what you expect you are way out of line.

This is chaos that you will like. You may not know why, but you will still like it.

Grim, Bleak, Frightening, Awesome.



SCORE - 72/100

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