Portrayal Of Guilt is a band that has eluded me for a couple of years now. I’ve been aware of their existence since the release of We Are Always Alone but never properly checked them out until much later when they played at Roadburn 2023 and I dived into their music before the festival. Sadly, due to either clashes or other priorities I had to miss their set as well as their performance this past April, just days before the release date of their latest work. So I figured the best I could do was to review the album as a form of repentance. But damn, I hit quite a bump.
You see, Portrayal Of Guilt are a very ambitious bunch who don’t seem too interested in sticking to a particular sound for too long. It has been very entertaining how the harshness of the screamo tunes from the first two records developed into a mass of filthy sludge and industrial metal on Christfucker and Devil Music (half of it anyway). But here on …Beginning Of The End, when asked what they were going to bring to the table, Portrayal Of Guilt simply said “yes”.
There is A LOT happening here except for screamo, which disappeared entirely from their sound. Industrial, sludge, black metal, post-metal, post-hardcore, alternative rock, dark ambient, trip-hop, and even some hip-hop touches. Yes, it sounds like a mouthful. In fact, it kind of is. …Beginning Of The End has 11 songs that only run through half an hour. The songs are short, immediate and constantly changing voices. I’m very impressed at the amount of styles the band has been able to squeeze in such a short amount of time but I wished they would develop these ideas for much longer in order to achieve their true potential. I saw myself saying “aw man, already?” quite a few times with this record. The very first track is a perfect representation of my frustration. It teases you into thinking it’s going to blow up but it suddenly stops, with the next song going in a completely different direction and tempo. They do these abrupt endings very often as if they are in a rush to get things over with. One could argue that it adds to the urgency of the music but I’m not sold on this idea. But throughout this very unstable album there is a common thread of groovy, raw, off-beat extreme music. The drums and bass lines have a very particular swag on them. While the catchy rhythm section does its thing, the vocals are hugely schizophrenic. From vicious growls and rabid shrieks to dark clean vocals and sultry female whispers, and of course the rapping in "Chamber Of Misery Pt. IV".
Now that the '90s are officially nostalgic and many of us are diving back into these sounds, it’s not strange that Portrayal Of Guilt are letting their hearts dictate their next move with some songs that basically sound like a nasty Deftones on crack. I’m all up for it. But I wish for the result to be a bit more cohesive next time.
