August 2025 - Feature Release - The Horde Edition

This month I have chosen to go with what has been to date my preferred release from Australia's squally death metal specialists, Portal and their 2013 album Vexovoid.  This may not be a sound for everyone, given the very dense atmosphere and dissonant depths that these guys mine to.  Personally, I have a real sweetspot for this stuff.

Let us know what you think in this thread or better still take some time to write a review.

https://metal.academy/releases/6170

I'd suggest that Portal would arguably be the most important death metal band to come out of my homeland these days. It took me a while to get into them when I first returned to the metal scene in 2009 but they eventually clicked for me & I've never looked back. I do have to say that they've always bored me in a live environment though. I tend to reach for Portal's earlier albums before I do "Vexovoid" but it's still a release that I have a fair bit of time for.

I don't recall ever having crossed paths with this Brisbane disso-death crew before - and I think I would remember if I had! In all honesty, Vexovoid inhabits a place so far outside my comfort zone that I need a telescope to see it. It consists of the kind of dissonant elements that provides me with a notion of what it must be like to teach a class of ADHD-affected toddlers. Flitting from musical idea to musical idea like a moth round a flame, it doesn't give me anything to attach an anchor to and so leaves me feeling adrift and detached from the disconcerting and infernal chaos they summon. The sound is huge for sure and it bludgeons and batters like any good death metal should, but it piles elements upon each other like a motorway crash and has a similar effect on me, making it terrible to behold, whilst also making it hard to ignore. Occasionally, such as during the first half of the track "Plasm", it reminds me of some of the more brutal war metal efforts, and this is when it appeals to me most, but its constantly shifting focus means I find it difficult to stay the course and I end up wishing I was listening to actual war metal instead.

All this being said, I can't help wondering that if I were to persevere with this whether it might reveal the appeal others evidently find in it. There are individual fragments that sound great with a huge tidal wave of sound that threatens to sweep away all before it, but I find these to be momentary and fleeting as the band soon turn yet another sharp corner and leave me wondering where they have gone. Look, I know that the problem is mine and that my low tolerance for both the dissonant and experimental is the deciding factor informing my opinion here, but that is a barrier that Vexovoid is never going to surmount, I don't think. Even though it may be one of the best examples of its ilk available, I would venture that this is never going to find much favour with me. On the plus-side, it is very short.

This all makes it very hard for me to attach a quantitative score to because I can't tell whether it is actually any good, so I am going to employ the "how does it make me feel" theory of music rating and award it 1.5/5

I didn't think this would be your bag Sonny.  Thanks for still checking it out though.  I have a brain that can (sometimes) find great solace and comfort in chaos and the arcane music of Portal hits that sweet spot for me.  Review to follow.

Thanks Vinny. I wish I could get into some of this avant-disso stuff, because a lot of people really seem to get a lot out of it and I feel I must be missing out, but I suppose I must accept that this type of metal isn't for me and probably never will be.