Portrait Sweden

"Portrait is another one of those Swedish retro metal bands, and portrait are very good at what they do. It seems to me that, while a lot of retro metal bands go back to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Portrait are more inspired by the legends in Mercyful Fate - even to the point that their vocalist Per Karlsson emulates King Diamond's singing techniques, but without being a rip-off. Karlsson is an excellent singer, and he has his own sound.

In addition to the king Diamond influences, Portrait also appear to drawn on 80s power metal and speed metal. There are a couple of neoclassical guitar patterns to be heard, and some tracks are played at early speed metal tempo.

While inheriting stylistic traits from Mercyful Fate, Portrait strike me as being less progressive than Mercyful Fate in the sense that Portrait have not adopted Mercyful Fate's complete disregard for traditional song structures, which means that the verse-chorus configuration appears on this album - not that that's a problem really.

Production-wise, Portrait manage to emulate a mid 80s sound, which is both good and bad. The good thing is that the sound is less polished than what we may be used to nowadays. The bad thing, to me, is that a lot of metal releases back then were drowned in reverb, and that also applies to this release.

Still, I think that this release is very good, and Portrait succeed in bringing back to life the weird and wonderful character of traditional 80s metal.

(review originally posted on metalmusicarchives.com)"

"The two songs on this EP by Swedish Portrait are actually quite good, I think. We are dealing with good old traditional heavy metal. The two tracks draw - and this is probably a conscious move by the band - on recognizable elements from 70s and 90s metal.

The title track, for instance, contains elements that remind me of Mercyful Fate (mainly the vocals), Iron Maiden (the use of galloping guitars and twin leads) and AC/DC (the use of boogie rock riffage as part of the bridge) as well as many other recognizable metal elements. And I must say, it works brilliantly.

The other track, "Son of All Graves" is more of a power metal-inspired affair which also contains references to Mercyful Fate and some King Diamond-esque riffage, too.

The two tracks are brilliant, and this EP is recommended to anyone who likes good ole solid heavy metal.

(Review originally posted on metalmusicargives.com)"