Town Portal – Chronopoly (2012)

Town Portal play cool and haunting instrumental rock with a notably dark and heavy undercurrent. In Chronopoly, the band’s first full length, much distinction is put on the interplay between guitar and bass, which offer a luscious array of angular riffs and highly irregular key changes. The cool crescendo in the album’s opener, ‘Chronoceros’, is the best example of their experimentation with chord progressions (I urge you to go through and count the variations in the guitar/bass lines). Artistically, Chronopoly always feels like the product of a thundery world. The post-metal fury in tracks like ‘Mad With Power’ and ‘Entropia’ is slightly subdued by the ethereal notes of ‘Samoan Maneauver’ and ‘Infinite Improvidence’, yet, even in these more beautiful tracks, the dropped tuning of the instruments still invoke an overwhelming sense of eeriness and discomfort. Overall, Chronopoly offers tranquillity whilst massaging ferocity and gloom, and what results is a sound that both pleases and provokes.

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