Crossroads is the third full-length album from Swedish metallers Portrait and it’s a good, solid release to say the least. It almost feels like a fresh take on some of the old-school heavy metal bands from years gone by, due to the powerful melodic male vocals able to reach all the high notes and the patterns that the instrumentation seems to follow, and yet despite this it doesn’t feel archaic – it sounds like an album from 2014.
It’s certainly an energetic and fast-paced album that’s guaranteed to get the listener tapping their foot along to it after the first full-length song and with impressive guitar sections and mindblowing vocals, it feels like there’s something on the album for everyone to enjoy. It’s just an accessible album, which is perhaps one of the best things to be.
Black Easter is the strongest track of the album, featuring this fantastic ‘driving’ introduction with some brilliant hammering drums in the background – it sets the track up nicely as it progresses and it’s somewhat of a heavier number with lots of showy instrumental parts and a thoroughly groovy section slap-bang in the middle of the track that sounds set to get people moving about to.
Crossroads is a highly enjoyable release and if you sway more towards old-school heavy metal then it’s a no-brainer that you’ll absolutely love this.
8/10
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