Town Portal – The Occident (Small Pond Recordings)
Not a bad start to this album from this three piece from Denmark but what I thought was just an instrumental opener turned out to be the whole album with no vocals. I’m not averse to music only albums but I think that you have to have something really special to pull it off. There are some very interesting time signatures which keeps me interested and with a down tuned sound and gruff Bass sounds, it keeps my attention. The guitar gets very atmospheric throughout the songs which inter change with some very hard hitting music. A cacophony would be the best way to describe the album but the very effective riffing makes this the stand out instrument, quite refreshing to hear this but it is not something I could listen to for a long spell. Best track is “Yes Golem” with it’s very, very heavy riffs mixed in with pounding drums. Paul Hoddy