RSS Feed


PORTRAIT
The Host

Metal Blade (2024)
Rating: 8/10

Set your mind aside for an hour and 15 minutes and succumb to the dark pleasures of The Host, the sixth full-length studio album from Sweden’s Portrait. As with the return from Germany’s Attic and their latest offering, Return Of The Witchfinder, Portrait continues the Mercyful Fate and King Diamond worship while adding their own occult mysticism and Gothic glint.

Melodies steeped in antiquarian horror merge with the sound of creaking floorboards, howling winds and crackling fires to accompany such melodrama. Mad axeman Karl Gustafsson joins the cult and teams up wonderfully with Christian Lindell to produce some fine riffage, especially on ‘The Sacrament’. The bass of Fredrik Petersson steamrollers throughout the album as the falsetto wails of Per Lengstedt pierce the night like a banshee warning.

This was always going to be a strong outing clustered with crisp axe work, especially with those fiery duels and the fact that Per Lengstedt produced and mixed the record seems to give it an edge over previous releases. The energy of the combo really comes to the fore on the nifty ‘The Blood Covenant’ on which Lengstedt tells us, “Midnight has come, solstice is here now and all is prepared”. It really sets the atmosphere like the yellowing pages of an old book enticing us with its earthy scent. “Come, hear me now as I call, oh devil,” he continues over the wicked tumbles of Anders Persson.

Apart from the brief instrumental intro ‘Hoc Est Corpus Meum’, this is a hefty story with a majority of cuts running over five minutes and culminating with the 11 minute ‘The Passions Of Sophia’ as Lengstedt croons, “Listen to my last words, for this life has now come to pass, I have seen beyond”. It’s all constructed in a manner that King Diamond himself would be proud of, even with its dominant bass. However, Portrait proves that even by taking familiar designs and well trodden occult traditions they remain fresh and somewhat innovative, especially with the anthemic drive of ‘Dweller Of The Threshold’ and the satanic speedball ‘Sound The Horn’. ‘Treachery’ is a big favourite of mine due to its pure steel and weight, but I also enjoyed some of the black metal instrumentation that litters the album alongside the dash of synths and eerie storytelling.

The Host is what I expected, but like any good – and often old – horror novel, a suspenseful charm is maintained even with the phantasmal ballad ‘One Last Kiss’. In fact, the tension constructed throughout conjures up the same arcane wisps I first experienced on King Diamond’s Fatal Portrait (1986) and Abigail (1987) albums.

There’s a lot of black smoke to inhale here and many tales to digest alongside the struggles through sticky cobwebs and layers of dust, but once inside all the stories on this tapestry of blood draw you in to their stuffy chambers like a moth to a flame.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share