Album Review #5 - Portal of I by Ne Obliviscaris

Ne Obliviscaris's debut, Portal of I (2012), is another of my favourite albums of all time and is absolutely breathtaking to me. It seamlessly blends harsh black and death metal sections with beautiful softer prog and acoustic passages. The inclusion of a violin adds an extra layer on top of the already complex structure and the two vocalists (one soft and one harsh) complement and clash with each other brilliantly. Song by song thoughts:

Tapestry of the Starless Abstract
Portal of I opens with a very intense passage. This bit is very black metal, with fast drumming and guitar playing along with shrieked vocals. It's quite a shocking start and it works well for me. It cools down shortly and opens into a more melodic section with really great riffs and the combining of the two vocalists. We also get our first taste of the violin a few minutes in. Like a lot of the album the band members balance acoustic and metal passages really well on this song. It's also got an awesome guitar and violin dueling solo.
10/10

Xenoflux
Xenoflux opens with an excellent melodic riff and soon combines this with vicious blast beats. There is a lot going on throughout a lot of this song and it comes across quite chaotic. It's one of the more intense songs on the album. I love the guitar tone at 3 minutes, it sounds so awesome and different. Even the acoustic section is quite fast-paced and has other elements on top at times. The bit after the acoustic section is one of my favourite bits on the album. It feels so triumphant and has a brilliant guitar sound. The whole end passage of this song is awesome, I love the solos too.
10/10

Of the Leper Butterflies
The shortest song on the album, Of the Leper Butterflies is 'only' just under 6 minutes long. It has some of the best vocals from the two singers and as usual, insanely impressive drumming ("Foresight, and memory"). The part 4:50 is also excellent with the rising violin which then floats along with the guitars for the rest of the song. Great stuff.
9/10

Forget Not
After the short song we get two incredible near 12 minute each masterpieces. Forget Not starts very calm with scarce acoustic notes and builds up throughout the majority of the song, creating suspense and anticipation for the explosion of music that is coming. I love the use of the violin throughout a lot of the song (I always love when it shows up). Forget Not takes its sweet time and I think that works completely to its benefit. It only really starts to get going halfway through, a full 6 minutes in with a riff that I love. Even at this point, it's not super intense. The song finally explodes 3 quarters of the way through with a blistering solo and intense drumming. After this it becomes softer again only for a few seconds until it gets intense again. It sounds like it could be boring but the many different layers and implementation of a violin keeps it interesting the whole time and the end of the song can only be described as euphoric, it's fantastic.
10/10

Forget Not used to be my favourite song on the album but it's now been overtaken by...

And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope
And Plague... opens with amazing violin work which sticks around for a long time and the opening is really different, it's almost got a flamenco sound to it. It's not there the whole time but the violin glides in and out which I absolutely love. Starting at 5 and a half minutes in the incredibly simple but crushingly heavy riff along with the violin coming in is one of my favourite parts of any song. It's there throughout a lot of the album but the bass is especially noteworthy in this song like after the simple riff. The guitar tone after this is also incredible. After this we get an onslaught of amazing solos including a short bass solo. Some of the best clean vocals on the album feature at the end of this song too. This is possibly my favourite song of all time.
10/10
As Icicles Fall
As Icicles Fall has a simpler structure than most of the other songs (lack of acoustic passages is very noticeable but is not a problem). It has some great riffs and some really fantastic singing from the clean singer especially. Intense violin moments combined with some stellar solos keeps this song on the same level as the others.
9/10

Of Petrichor Weaves Black Noise
Of Petrichor Weaves Black Noise is my least favourite song on the album (although it's still fantastic). It has some kind of...generic riffs which I think is my main problem with some of it. Some impactful violin and acoustic moments help it though and it has a really unique riff at around 6:45 that I like a lot. It ends with very atmospheric choir-like vocals which is cool (but has a really annoying loud bit of noise at the end).
9/10

Thus concludes what used to be my favourite album of all time (It's up there!). Everything about it just works together so fantastically. It also has sick cover art. This album and type of music isn't for everyone but at least give Forget Not and And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope a listen, they are truly something special.
Thanks for reading! Have you heard this album? What do you think?

https://open.spotify.com/album/2AX3vMS7gYbrS7tALE4U7Q?si=WGpF6E55TCWEQxa8UeHUCw

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://www.atomcollectorrecords.com/blog/2019/08/09/album-review-5-portal-of-i-by-ne-obliviscaris/

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