Tag Archives: Portal

Grave Upheaval – Untitled (II)

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There’s an element of mystery surrounding Australian duo Grave Upheaval, enhanced by the sparing title of this sophomore album (the second time they’ve left an album untitled, but let’s go with II, (Nuclear War Now!) and its similarly named tracks. It’s reinforced by a guttural, terrifying sound evident right from opener ‘I’: a Funeral crawl through a barren, infested wasteland, with a harsh ambiance and dry, feral growls leading into a pacy, Death-infused barrage. Yet despite the furious onslaught of blast beats, the blood-curdling vocal scour and rumbling background fuzz retain the omen of apocalypse. Continue reading →


Portal – Ion

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Portal are one of the most important Death Metal bands in the world.

In a genre as conservative as Heavy Metal it is no surprise that lists of influential bands generally don’t go beyond a pre-approved set of “classics”, but Portal have earned their place among the Deaths and Morbid Angels. Over four albums and nearly fifteen years, they took Death Metal apart and reassembled the pieces into nightmarish, abstract shapes that for the first time managed to sound how the artwork looked. Like most innovators, it took time for their impact to sink in, but over the last few years they have – quite against their will, it seems – triggered a mini-trend of impersonators and left Death Metal in quite a different place than it was in 2013 when Vexovoid (Profound Lore), was released. Continue reading →