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Review: Portrait - At One with None
Portrait
www.facebook.com/portraitsweden
At One with None

Label: Metal Blade Records
Year released: 2021
Duration: 52:27
Tracks: 8
Genre: Heavy Metal

Rating:
4.5/5


Review online: September 16, 2021
Reviewed by: MetalMike
Readers' Rating
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Rated 4.5/5 (90%) (14 Votes)
Review

I have never been much of a Portrait fan and can't recall much about the previous albums I have heard, but their latest, At One with None, is bucking that trend emphatically. This is an album heavily steeped in the '80s, from the songwriting, the atmosphere and especially the vocals. They are not your typical clean or gravelly/semi-harsh vocals that were the standards back in the day. The singer has a varied approach and a wildness that while contained is so underground you'll need a shovel. Hearing them for the first time brought me up short, but quickly they sank in and now I can't imagine the songs without them. Speaking of the songs, they are all solid and ooze '80s metal despite the modern production. Portrait gives us some mid-paced, chunky riffs on "Ashen" and "Murder of Crows," songs that are sure to get your head banging, but then steps it up even more with the title track, which opens the album with a roar that pinned my ears back. I wondered if it could get better and then I heard the closer, "The Gallows Crossing". This one starts out slow and somber before picking up the pace and demolishing everything in its path to close out the album in high style.

At One with None reminds me of the days when I would purchase an album blindly, like Trouble's debut, Cirith Ungol's King of the Dead or Thrust's Fist Held High, bring them home and be utterly shocked by how different they were from the Maiden/Priest/Sabbath I had until then thought was as heavy as it got. Portrait doesn't sound like those bands (well, maybe a little like Cirith Ungol and Mercyful Fate, if I'm honest) but nevertheless, At One with None is an experience no fan of '80s metal should miss.

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