### Portrait: Crossroads

#### 20/04/14 || sincan

Portrait, the Swedish old school heavy metal dwell, is back with a follow up to the highly acclaimed “Crimen laesae majestatis dildo”, thus raising the expectation one can have on this new album. Let’s see how they managed, shall we? Grab your wig, leather pants and favorite pair of banana hammocks and we are ready to go.

I guess I always will think about In Solitude when thinking/listening/reviewing/dreaming wet dreams about Portrait and vice versa, this since I started to listen to these bands at the same time. Both are from Sweden and both play heavy metal with some dark vibe in it. Whereas In Solitude explored new grounds with their latest release Portrait stays in the same course as previous release .

What can I say, well fans of the last album will not be disappointed with this one since we are served timeless guitar riffs, bass lines and drumming along with very well executed vocals (even falsetto screams), on top of this the great song writing with powerful choruses. All good, so long. Take “In time” for example, which directly became my favorite track on this album with its straightforward and “epically close your fist” approach and when the chorus kicks in it’s hard not to be touched by its engaging power and grab a sword and kill all the unfaithful light prayers (not as in the forbidden light).

Another fine track, just to mention one more, is the second (or first if you don’t count the intro) “At the ghost gate” which raises the bar pretty high. But when listening on this album from start till end I tend to feel a bit saturated after some time (note, a bit, you fuck) and some of the tracks (one or two more anonymous ones) seem to blur into each other a bit, maybe it’s just me getting old and tired, I don’t know, but this is what I feel. You have to accept that, ok? But then “Our roads must never cross” mixes up a thing or two with some harsh vocals, and we all love to mix up things once or twice.

So prepare your butt for some trve heavy mvtvll and salute this album.

- Information
- Released: 2014
- Label: Metal Blade Records
- Website: facebook.com/portraitsweden
- Band
- Anders Persson: drums
- Christian Lindell: guitars
- Per Lengstedt: vocals
- David Olofsson: guitars
- Mikael Castervall: bass

- Tracklist
- 01. Liberation
- 02. At the ghost gate
- 03. We were not alone
- 04. In time
- 05. Black easter
- 06. Ageless rites
- 07. Our roads must never cross
- 08. Dies irae Pt.2