Listening to Portrait’s new album is an interesting experience, to say the least. One moment it’s face-melting, finger-shredding, testicle-dropping (that’s right, kids) solos that will have you, or in this case me, knocking everything else off the desk to pull some epic air-guitar to this amazing guitar wizardry. The next, what was awesome has turned into some rather bland metal that could be any number of bands already out there.
Nothing terrible, but nothing note-worthy or impressive. There’s a tide of kick-ass riffs and solos that surf over a body of work that’s a lot of filler. Vocalist Per Karlsson invokes a power-metal falsetto the best he can, giving most of the songs a familiar Iron Maiden/King Diamond sound, which works well for the most part but one can tell he’s still working on finding his own voice instead of emulating others.
The rhythm section is a gaping hole in the sound, where it needs to amp up the sound between solos, there’s nothing giving the music any extra push or depth. Spectacular guitars, sub-par songs. Portrait has some fantastic secret weapons as their guitarists, but they have some work to do to sound like their own band.
Having formed in 2006 though, there’s much potential here, so if you’re in the mood for some six-string insanity, pick this up and keep an eye on their future work: it’s missing their own, carved out sound but it does sound like they’re getting there. Some great dark, powerful moments and some excellent eerie, Goth-metal moments. Candlemass and Venom fans might find something they like in here as well.
Available on CD, loving this Scandanavian-gothic throwback of a cover: dark church in a barren field framed by dead trees. Awesome old school, black metal aesthetic that looks fantastic and suits the album.
