Portal

Portal are an Australian death metal group from Brisbane, active from 1994 to the present. The band works in avant-garde metal, death metal, dissonant death metal, noise and technical death metal, and is also described as an experimental blackened death metal act.

Style and approach

The group is known for a suffocating sound built around horror atmosphere, with each recording aiming for new forms of ugly, creepy texture and heaviness. Their music also uses tempo experimentation. One description compares the band to a collision of Morbid Angel and Gorguts filtered through German Expressionism.

Members

The line-up includes Damon Good. In earlier listings the band is also credited with The Curator on vocals, Horror Illogium and Aphotic Mote on guitar, Omenous Fugue on bass, and Ignis Fatuus on drums.

Recordings

Portal first appear on tape with a self-titled demo in 1998. They follow with The Endmills in demo form, Seepia, The Sweyy EP, Lurker at the Threshold, Outre’, Swarth and Vexovoid. Several of these recordings receive later reissues on labels including Profound Lore Records, Dissident Records, Osmose Productions and Hells Headbangers. Outre’ and Seepia are also reissued together under the title Ordo Decimus Peccatum.

Discography notes

The Endmills appears both as a CD demo and later on 7-inch vinyl. Seepia appears in an early CD/LP release and later in a digipak reissue. The Sweyy EP is a split with Rites of thy Degringolade and an earlier CD version includes two live tracks. Swarth appears on digipak CD and later on double LP vinyl. Outre’ also appears in later vinyl reissues, and Vexovoid appears on both digipak CD and LP.