Doomsday 2009: Portal/ Mournful Congregation/ Tzun Tzu/ Altars
Fowler's Live, Saturday 24 January


There was always going to be a bit of a gulf between the two supports and the titans who headed this night, but openers Altars held up their side of the deal. Particularly encouraging was their avoidance of the over-technicality trap. Though the riffs came on tight and fast, they always conveyed a proper sense of metal muscle which brought an instant and enthusiastic response from the crowd. Definitely a band worth keeping an eye on.

Comparison with the headlining bands is cruel, but Tzun Tzu's set did them no favours. Despite their wealth of experience and evident talent, they fail to integrate their signature oriental elements into the brutal death metal which makes up the body of their sound. The basics they've got in spades; it's the ability to really turn a head which they lack most profoundly, especially live. And this really hurt them on the night - upstaged, perhaps, by the vigour of Altars and then completely blown away by two of the most unique and colossal metal bands Australia has ever produced.

I'll spare you the history lesson and simply say Mournful Congregation's first ever gig, a mere 15 years into their existence, was easily as good as any I've seen. As the first song, the epic, morose and beautiful Mother-Water, The Great Sea Wept, came to its crushing conclusion, I was almost ready to leave. If I hadn't been so transfixed, so completely and utterly floored by the very spectacle, I might've scurried off home to a darkened room and rued the fact I'd never again hear something so perfect, nor so touching. Happily, I was wrong, and the set rolled on with wave after wave of the most poignant and melancholy metal I've ever witnessed.

Mournful Congregation are not a band for the impatient. Their especially slow and drawn out songs (even by funeral doom standards) can take up to twenty minutes to unfold, but clichŽd as it sounds, you'd never notice. Time really does stand still as the listener is plunged into deep introspection by the beautiful and aptly mournful melodies. For a band reluctant to take the stage up until this point, they played with a mastery of atmosphere and a crisp unity which speaks of the sheer talent and the expertise of their members.

It feels odd to leave so few words to Portal's end of the review, but descriptions of Portal's music inevitably tend towards farce as reviewers and fans alike flounder with ridiculous metaphors and drown themselves in outlandish and superfluous adjectives. And I admit it's easy to see why. On the live stage, the band's very aura is a tangible and potent force. You don't just unwittingly stumble into a Portal gig, and if you do, you'd probably regret it. If you haven't already run screaming from the room, clutching at the last shreds of your sanity, you'll witness some of the most mind-bending and torturous death metal, not to mention bizarre costumes, you'll ever see. I'll leave you to decide whether this is something to which you'd like to subject yourself.

Mike Cross