Portal on Chrome Leaf Records

Holy shit, I forgot I'm going to see this Wednesday...let's just say when a metal band with a guy who plays with a cuckoo clock on his head from Australia finally makes it to Brooklyn...you get tickets months ahead of time and see that shit.
It has to be the most extreme sounding, theatrical metal I've heard of in a long time, pure gutteral growling, the most evil sounding vocals....but the clock and tuxedo jacket puts this in a new context for me. It makes so little sense outside of the usual metal symbolism I'm completely into it. They are taking all aspects of this to the ultimate limit, the guitar is technically insane, the spectacle is completely weirdo. They raised the bar. If you want to attempt this, it's going to take a lot of dedication to be in the same league with these guys.
Is that what happens when this extreme technical metal is transformed through our aussie underground counterparts? It's because they are hanging upside down isn't it. I don't know if that has much to do with it, or this is down under's answer to Norweigan Black Metal. There will be books about the cultural conditions that led to this specific branch of metal.
It's going to be insane, and this single on Chrome Leaf better be at the merch table because other than aquarius records (search for Portal) this is going to be impossible to get...and you'll want it after watching 5 seconds of this video:



Aquarius says perfectly:

PORTAL "Lurker At The Threshold" (Chrome Leaf) 7" picture disc 9.98
These masked mysterious weirdo death metallers just drifted through town, their show, like their sound, a grim, almost dada-esque twist on classic death metal, a swirling chaos of gnarled buzzing riffage, blasting loose limbed drumming, and the creepy grunts and growls of hooded front man 'The Curator', the whole band masked and draped in black, spewing huge swells of twisted sonic malevolence.
All three Portal full lengths were huge favorites around here, every one a dizzying assemblage of warped blackness and fractured death metal fury, murky and muddy and washed out, frenzied and freaky and gloriously fucked up. Visually and sonically like a metal Faxed Head, Portal's death metal bears only a slight resemblance to regular death metal, which is precisely why it's so appealing.
This super limited picture disc 7” compiles 2 of the 3 songs from Portal's 2006 demo tape Lurker At The Threshold, and while re-recorded versions of both these songs found their way on to the Outre full length, these older, more raw (believe it or not) versions are well worth checking out. “Omnipresent Crawling Chaos” explodes in a blast of murky metallic grind, frenzied and frantic, but so blurred and smeared as to render it a strange shadowing deathmetalscape, all lurching and lumbering and blasting, a swirling black sonic cloud. “13 Globes” is another chunk of blown out grinding metal crush, but with some cool woozy warbly minor key melodies, stuttering start stop rhythms, and insane tangled riffage, all wrapped in a melted murky lo-fi blacknoize gauze.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! Pressed on super thick 70 gram vinyl, super striking picture disc adorned with creepy Lovecraftian artwork, either already out of print or darn close, so get one while you can...