Australian

Band: Portal

Logo: Looks like letters were found in an ancient and mystical text. Sophisticated, macabre, esoteric. Very simple and calligraphic.

Album:

Outre' - 2007

Confusion. Induced dread. Clocklike creature with reptilian hands walking among dead bodies, bodies writhing in pain, headless bodies and bodiless heads. Cluster of column-like clocks toppling over, decrepit and jaged. Some broken or smashed. Eerie. Antique sepia. H.P. Lovecraft-ian. Old, decrepit, cobblestone path. Looming darkness in back. 

Sound: Dissonant, suffocating atmosphere. Evil down-tuned guitars, buzzing, a swirling miasma. Almost soundscape. Overpowering. Disjointed, off-time rhythms, dizzying. Sudden shift to slow lurching. Cosmic and Lovecraftian horror. Invocation of evil spirits and the Great Old Ones through the harsh raspy whispers of The Curator. Frantic drumming like that of a mad-man. The two guitars and bass grate against one another, disorienting the listener. Cascading rhythms pulse and sway ever deeper into oblivion, causing one to slip further into the abyss of the music.

Lyrics:

"Yog sothoth, the noxious liquescent blasphemy
Who knowest the mazes of time, for all time is the one unto him
The key & the gate, opener of the way
Through those unspeakable of the void re-enter

Soul symbol of the most abysmal evil"

Use nonsensical/uncommon words, create a sense of unknown, as if one has entered a realm in which they are familiar with nothing. Talk of the Great Old Ones from H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos and cosmic horror. Influence of time's subjectiveness and relativity is also found, Contemplation of vast solar systems and the horror which awaits in them.

Feeling: Sound and lyrics disorient. So otherworldly in nature it makes one feel as if they are drifting through the cosmos, encountering evil spirits and monstrosities along the way. One gets the sense that something horrible is going to happen, the evil whispering of the Curator sets one edge. Like he is calling upon evil to create something truly horrific.

Relation to Scene: Exemplary of the Australian scene's interest in magic and H.P. Lovecraft. Many other bands play in the same disjointed and disorienting style.

The Band: All members have otherworldly appearances. The Curator wears clock on head, or a gigantic tattered wizard hat, or a black martire, or a two faced veil with which he wears tentacle fingers. Other members wear executioners masks and nooses around necks. 

Members:

The Curator - Vocals

Aphotic Mote - Guitars

Horror Illogium - Guitars

Ignis Fatuus - Drums

Omenous Fugue - Bass