First Impressions on Portal's Seepia

I went ahead and listened to the album Seepia by Portal (shown below) - they are this weird avant-garde death metal band that throws in black metal influences. They are rather highly regarded so I thought that I should try them out.  Below are my first impressions as I listened:


Figure 1. Album Cover of Seepia by Portal

I started the album and was immediately met with a fuzzy, evil sound that gave way to a furious, punishing wave of sound. If I picked a genre to describe them with, I would say death metal but with a scarier atmosphere; horror metal, maybe. The gargantuan nature of the music made it so menacing. Definitely an album to drop the volume a little bit or even a lot. Somehow the opener which shocked me so made me want more. One vital element of the music was the extreme speed and tightness that offers very little breathing room. The vocals were layered at a slightly lower volume, creating a very eerie atmosphere where the lyrics are indistinguishable from the onslaught. Here the ending of a song offers that brief respite before continuing on. This album definitely has cool song titles though, especially the very metal "Vessel of Balon." If it seems like this post is a whirlwind, I should point out that this album is one. I thought that the Secret as an intense band but Portal outmaneuvers them rather easily. Surviving until the penultimate piece "Antiquate" was honestly quite surprising - now I am met with a piece that starts with crackly, fuzzy synthesizer that sounds rather volcanic but without punishing guitar. This piece breaks up the ruthlessness and allows peace for a brief period of time. By the time I reach the closer, I am quite besieged with fatigue that is only partially alleviated by "Antiquate." "The Endmills," however, just fails on some level; here the style has become rote, despite the brief refuge offered. Where would I be without the samples of weird sounds used artificially to break up the distortion? Clearly this is the answer! Except I don't get it. This album = 0.5*(this is rather good)+ 0.5*(what am I even listening to?). I survived this whole album somehow but only because I took a few breaks. I am not sure if I want to return but that was certainly quite a trip.