Friday 19 October 2012

Town Portal - Chronopoly

Band request from Denmark.

I reviewed the Town Portal EP last year and hoped that there
would be a full album available to listen to - well, here it is.
They play instrumental mathy-rock but with a much heavier
feel than a lot of their peers. I will leave the massive and
detailed press release to tell you about it - have a read and
listen then make your own mind up.




Recklessly focused and peculiarly embracing: The debut album of Copenhageners Town Portal dares to sparkle in an abundance of different nuances. Chronopolyis a solid entry from a band with just 2 years under its belt. Just about one year has passed since Town Portal captured and released the first fragment of their non-verbal musical universe in the shape of the EP Vacuum Horror, whichwas merely released digitally on a pay-what-you-want basis. In spite of humble circumstances, the record acquired a much less humble amount of attention, receiving praising reviews in leading Danish music magazines likes Soundvenue (5/6), Devilution (4/5) and Geiger, who said that “Town Portal manages to utilize all the means of music and does so on an exceptionally high level. The energy of a band young at heart, and the notion of a feeling of no limits to their own prowess, shines through…”.Furthermore the Vacuum Horror EP was launched into the international blogosphere, and got the band touring around most of the European mainland.Since then the constellation has been reduced from four men to three, forcing Town Portal to decompose and reconstruct approaches to sound and composition. These endeavors has resulted in the debut album Chronopoly (from Greek ‘chronos’ and English ‘monopoly’). Like its predecessor this record still offers instrumental rock-music with a sludgy dropped tune hook,which serves as counterweight to complex and playful compositions. With a tireless curiosity new ways are sought out,of combining tones in untraditional ways, with the traditional guitar-bass-drum constellation. On Chronopoly though, these well-known components mutate to their extremes, and form a release that is both more complex, melodic, direct, and boundary pushing than the predecessor; an exponential development in a well-governed welter of metal, shoegaze, indie,and progressive rock. 

During this fall the album will be followed by a set of Danish shows, as well as Town Portal’s third international tour, that in the course of two weeks will take the band through Germany, France and Switzerland, in the company of AmericanFeast of the Epiphany. Town Portal’s ChronopolyLP is the fifth release of the independent Copenhagen-based vinyl label Subsuburban. A label that in just over a year released four high quality records with a smallarray of international acts: AmericanTime Columns and Silian Rail, ItalianValerian Swing, and the Stockholm-based one-man act Flourescent Heights. Subsuburban has active distribution both physically and digitally. Records can be found in just about all notable record stores in Scandinavia, and in select stores in the U.S.A (NYC, San Fransisco and Austin), Italy, Great Britain(through Norman Records), Germany and Benelux (via. Belgian Dunk Records and German Kapitan Platte). Town Portal is the first “local” signing of Subsuburban. An interesting new beginning for an atypical record label’s actual, serious, and awaited advent into the Danish scene.

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