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The Mist from The Mountains impressed the hell out of me a few years back with their debut, Monumental - The Temple of Twilight, and I'm happy to report that they continue to impress with their sophomore album. Much like last time, Portal – The Gathering of Storms works in an epic, atmospheric, sometimes folk vein of black metal that reminds me a bit of Moonsorrow at times, and if there's a mainstream for this kind of thing, I'd say the band draws a lot from it overall. That's far from a bad thing, as songs like "At the Roots of the Vile" and "The Seer of the Ages" are definitely worthy of bumping shoulders with the heavyweights of the style. However, they clearly intend to be more than just a mere clone act, and that's most evident on the emotional "Among the Black Waves", whose dreamlike atmosphere and fragile female singing doesn't really fit the rest of the album, and arguably has more ideas than it can really make work, but it's definitely proof the band have greater ambitions than average and even have the potential to really capitalize on them in the future. Overall, this isn't quite as consistently enthralling as the debut, but it's damn close while flashing promises of something different and daring in the future, which is more than enough to make it worth your time.