Artist: Portal
Orgin: Västervik / Stockholm, Schweden
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Label: Vic Records
Link: http://www.facebook.com/portalswe
Bandmitglieder:
Guitar, Vocals – Kristian Kaunissaar
Guitar Vocals – Stefan Johansson
Bass – Emil Koverot
Drums – Matthias Fiebig
Time For Metal / Lutz N.:
Hey Portal,
First of all I want to thank you all for taking some time for Time For Metal. It’s really nice talking to you. I hope that the following questions are not to boring for you. 😉
So let us start directly: You are not that famous in Germany. So please tell our readers who you are and what you are doing.
Portal:
We are a melodic death metal band from sweden who recently released our second album For all that is damned to vanish. The band came to life almost twenty years ago and have produced one demo and two full length albums this far. Impressive hu?
Time For Metal / Lutz N.:
In my review about your latest album, I said that Portal is not one of „these“ Swedish death metal bands, which are trying to be like Dismember, Grave or bands like that. You are combining the old style of Amon Amarth with the style of old Dissection Songs. Why did you choose this way of playing metal or did it happen by „accident“?
Portal:
I think you are spot on in your analysis of our music/genre, if you mean that we have the melodies of Dissection and the heaviness of Amon Amarth. Our style is mostly based on our front manKristians preferences which is old death like: Entombed and Napalm Death and some black likeGehenna and Dissection; topped with influences from the other members like heavy metal, punk, folk and classical music.
Why we play the way we do is an interesting question. One way to look at it would the macho approach, which means that we like to evoke the feeling of greatness and triumph, yet at the same time play sombre melodies filled with longing. I think that we might try to put a soundtrack to the image of the free and adventurous man who roams the earth, which explains the viking references, and at the same time expressing the gloom in not be able reach the ideal, and hate towards the cult(ural) prison guards who always tries to put a lid on the excitement of living. It would be most truthful to say we chosed this way of playing.
Time For Metal / Lutz N.:
You formed the band in the 90ies. Why did it take so long for you recording the second full length album?
Portal:
The gap between the release of our debut “forthcoming” and the recording “For all..” is big but not as big as I assume you believe. The release of “For all” has been delayed several years due to problems with labels. So the main reason to your question is the rapid death of the record business in the middle of the 00´s. We went through four different labels who either went bankrupt or decided to leave the business of records and lost a little bit faith along the way. We had material but no release channel, and none of us had the drive to find other ways to distribute our music. So we layed off for a bit and didn’t care much about Portal until VIC contacted us last year. Beside all the crap with things we can´t really affect, we always take alot of time making music. More than most bands. We want shit to be perfect, even though it´s impossible we do our best in polishing our tunes before we called them final.
Time For Metal / Lutz N.:
In some of your songs you use a stylistic device, nontypic for the subgenre. You use these fantastic clean voice to support the hooks of your songs. It’s really making you unique. When did you recognize that this is the one of the ways to lift you up from other bands?
Portal:
The interest of clean vocals has been there since the beginning. Stefan used his clean voice in some punk constellations before Portal, and Kristian realized he had a voice when he recorded the clean vocals for Blodsrits Likbål back in -98. Theres even a nervous attempt of clean vocals on the first demo The Prophet. In a way It exemplifies our early ambitions of creating dynamic and versatile extreme music. On For all.. we used a lot of different codes for how the vocals should be expressed, like: american, beast, scream, clean e.t.c. which gave the record a nice variety and great expressions of what we wanted to say.
Time For Metal / Lutz N.:
With a release as a basis you are certainly playing some shows this year. Are there any plans to do a supporting tour? And – this point is really interesting – for our readers: Will you enter German stages in 2014?
Portal:
I have no idea whatsoever! None has offered us anything but expensive(as fuck) opening spots on weird tours , so I think it’s safe to say that theres nothing planned for the summer as of now. It’s been years since Portal sat foot on german soil, and thats a pity, since its always been a blast to meet the german metal heads.
Time For Metal / Lutz N.:
For All That Is Damned To Vanish was released by VIC Records. How would you describe the work with this label. Are you satisfied?
Portal:
We had no demands on them at all and didn’t expect anything to happen or to get anything from it when we let them release the record, and therefore it’s hard for us to be disappointed. But regarding the quality of sound, and how they’ve handled the pressing and distribution this far, is unscrupulous. Also we’ve had a great dialogue with them since we made contact. Maybe we should try to demand something from them and see how they handles it, and maybe that would generate more interesting things to say in interviews.
Time For Metal / Lutz N.:
At the end of this interview let’s do some typical questions:
What are you planing for the future (new album, festival shows, breaking up – just a joke. Never do stuff like that! :-D)?
Portal:
The first plan is to get a foundation of the next album when it comes to music and lyrics. It’s been years since we constructed “For all..” so what Portal will sound like from here on is not yet determined. We’re anxious finding out though.
Time For Metal / Lutz N.:
And finally as it has to end, the last words belong to you.
Portal:
Thanks for the intie! We appreciate the interest! And also a big swinging thanks to the new and oldPortal fans out there. Your appreciation is our fuel.