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Review Summary: With shortened song lengths and a trimming of musical fat, Ne Obliviscaris could have produced a good listen on Portal of I. Another year, another overblown metal album that is criminally overrated by the Internet music community. It's a tradition that's been established by albums like Between the Buried and Me's Colors and Protest the Hero's Fortress. With Portal of I, Australian metal band Ne Obliviscaris merely rekindles the passing torch of "progressive" metal mediocrity. The songs extend to unjustifiable lengths, there are superfluous additions to the music, and memorability is often exchanged for technicality of composition. However, Ne Obliviscaris does hit occasional emotional heights not present in most progressive metal music.
Unfortunately, these moments are not frequent enough. Ne Obliviscaris just doesn't have the songwriting chops to crank out 10+ minute compositions. In And Plague Flowers The Kaleidoscope, the first five minutes consist of a flowing, pleasant ensemble of instruments, but the djent riffing utterly demolishes any momentum the song had going. On the other hand, misplaced quiet sections are commonplace in Portal of I. Loud and multi-layered instrumentation quickly cut to quiet acoustic sections, with no proper attention given to fluid transitions. These elements seem like cheap excuses to extend five of the six song past a nine-minute running time, which is far too lengthy.
Another pivotal flaw is the addition of additions to the music. The violin rarely fits in, as it is overused in heavy sections. Its beauteous and gentle timbre contrasts too greatly with the aggressive, distorted power of the electric guitars. However, the violin is used correctly in some situations. When Forget Not rolls around, it's somber but melodic tone enhances the introductory 6 minutes, and it knows to cut out when the heaviness kicks in. Perhaps more frustrating though, are the overused clean vocals. They are far too melodic and not powerful enough for the crescendos that they occupy, as noted in the latter half of Forget Not.
Perhaps the greatest problem with this album is that almost none of it is memorable. Sure, there are plenty of grand crescendos and heavy riffs, but none of it sticks out in my mind after listening. The reason for this is the focus of Ne Obliviscaris' musical vision; they are too preoccupied with the massive scope of the album to offer true substance within. After listening to Of Petrichor Weaves Black Noise, I am impressed by the vast scale of the song, but can't even recall a specific musical motif. The compositions are plenty epic, but this becomes tiring when I can't ever revel in an original metal riff.
It's unfortunate that these flaws are present, as the positives of Portal of I are greatly overshadowed. With shortened song lengths and a trimming of musical fat, Ne Obliviscaris could have produced a good listen on Portal of I.
| other reviews of this album |
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Album Rating: 2.5
Not the best but this needed at least a slightly negative review
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
album is a bloated mess with some cool stuff every now and then
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
"Fatal error: Call to undefined function numcheck() in /var/www/html/sputnik/editreviews.php on line 5 "
Yay for editing errors. Can't edit my mistakes for now I guess.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
Album is alright but doesn't deserve #57 all-time best metal albums. That is widely overrated.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
Funeralopolis your name reminds me that I need to listen to Electric Wizard more
Why thank you
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Still gotta listen to this.
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"Another year, another overblown metal album that is criminally overrated by the Internet music community."
This type of starting sentence destroys any credibility you have as a reviewer, man. Once you say something like this, your review's purpose seems to be to tell people that like it that they're wrong, as opposed to credible reasoning that explains why the album is mediocre. You do touch on analysis later in the review, but that introduction just paints a bad picture for your review and I don't like it.
"the djent riffing utterly demolishes any momentum the song had going."
Djent riffing? I know the part you're talking about, but I definitely wouldn't use that term to describe it.
"Another pivotal flaw is the addition of additions to the music."
Was this intentional? If so, I don't understand what you were trying to say here.
I agree in that the album is hard to remember afterwards, but I would venture to say it's just that type of album. I love it when I'm listening to it, but the particular melodies elude me afterwards because it's pretty complex stuff overall. I would never expect particular moments from an album like this to come to mind after listening to it a time or two, although I can understand your point on it.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
"This type of starting sentence destroys any credibility you have as a reviewer, man. Once you say something like this, your review's purpose seems to be to tell people that like it that they're wrong, as opposed to credible reasoning that explains why the album is mediocre. You do touch on analysis later in the review, but that introduction just paints a bad picture for your review and I don't like it."
I'm just saying that it's heavily overrated in my opinion, people can like whatever music they want
"Was this intentional? If so, I don't understand what you were trying to say here."
Nope, that's just a writing error. Cant fix it currently due to glitches.
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"Nope, that's just a writing error. Cant fix it currently due to glitches."
Gotcha, I've experienced some grief over that as well. -_-
"I'm just saying that it's heavily overrated in my opinion, people can like whatever music they want"
The way that I see it though is that if you call something overrated, you're saying others shouldn't like it as much as they do. If you feel that way, then you can't also feel like they can like whatever they want, you know?
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
This is rated higher than Wintersun. That's ridiculous. It's also not a good sign that I haven't been able to listen through this album in one sitting. Really easy to lose interest in.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
I'm not saying that people should like the album less, I'm just saying that the average of 4.3 is way too high for me personally
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"Perhaps the greatest problem with this album is that almost none of it is memorable"
It always takes a fair few listens for something this technical to fully click. Then you'll be remembering it...
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
I've listened to this album about three or four times though
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The acoustic part in Tapestry is so :3
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EGAD
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i mean it doesnt suck but yea 4.3 hahahaha
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
Apparently this is better than Slayer - Reign In Blood and Agalloch - The Mantle. Lol sputnik.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
"He's mixing up 'flamenco' with 'djent'. lol. This guy knows nothing, he just wanted a negative review for the sake of being negative. And unmemorable? Shit, son. I can replay Tapestries in my head perfectly. "
Well now we know who the neg was from
"Apparently this is better than Slayer - Reign In Blood and Agalloch - The Mantle. Lol sputnik."
Hell no. Hopefully with time, Portal of I will lower and the classics will retake their proper spots.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
"You guys shouldn't worry about the rating system. It's wholly flawed. All rating systems are. I could rate two albums a five, but love one album a thousand times more. I could rate an album a 3.5 and like it more than an album I rated a 4, simply because of the quality of work coming from each band. This is a new Metal band who have produced a debut that is this overwhelmingly good for just a debut, that this deserves every 4.5 it gets."
You are kind of right here, some 5's I may prefer to other 5's
"And if I had to choose, Portal of I >>>>>>>>>> Reign in Blood"
But this...no, just no. RiB is a revolutionary thrash metal classic, this is just the next prog metal act
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
"Apparently this is better than Slayer - Reign In Blood and Agalloch - The Mantle. Lol sputnik."
This is also fairly new, and therefore has a lot less exposure. Those two albums have been subjected to a lot of listens by people that wouldn't typically frequent the genre. This one is still fairly underground, so for the most part, only people that are looking for these kinds of albums will find it, and they're more likely to enjoy it more.
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