Following a (much needed) good night’s sleep, I was ready for the second day of Portals Festival 2023. Due to only being human, I’d go on to see fewer acts than planned, but I was particularly happy to see the early acts as they were the most new to me.
Shy, Low, main stage
Portals ‘23 resumed at the main stage with Shy, Low, beaming in from Virginia for the final date of their headlining EU tour. They play the classic post metal/rock sound, much like Bossk from day one, so they were a safe place to start proceedings. Despite their maturity (with four LPs released over more than ten years) they had not appeared on my radar until Portals. They had a monster of a drummer behind the fog, playing incredible fills in dronelike moments that should make other drummers feel ashamed of vague cymbal dancing. Between the three guitarists, at least one was always producing a delay-before-distortion lead sound to saturate their sonic spectrum. The bassist hopped into the audience for their final meteoric outro. A terrific performance, and their first performance after the release of their new Babylonica EP. It’s a great bitesized introduction to the band if you’re new to them.
God Alone, theatre
It’s a pleasure to see a band that are genuinely chuffed to be at an event. After their set, I kept seeing the members of God Alone in among the other attendees, buzzing to hear the other acts. When on stage, they twice said that the EartH hall was the nicest room they’d played in. The band sharing their slot (Qariaq) unfortunately dropped out, the silver lining being that God Alone could play to a particularly large audience. On their newest LP, they cut the distortion and re-engineered dance music from math rock. The jiving audience at the foot of the stage demonstrates this move was successful. The dedicated synth player cut through the mix with quirky beats and Gameboy noises. Both the bassist and guitarist stole the show with their theatrics, including an actual karate kick attempt during “Kung Fu Treachery“. The set brought home how much they’d changed since their debut EPs, and made it clear that the direction they struck out on their 2022 LP was a good choice; clearly I too must re-evaluate it.
Pupil Slicer, main stage
Pupil Slicer were one of the Portals artist that really pushed the sonic boundaries. The technical complexity of their music was enough to grant them entry, but their mathcore speed and intensity is well beyond the other main stage acts. This intensity wasn’t matched by the audience, as brash requests for moshing were mostly unanswered; perhaps 3pm really is just a bit too early. There was some bad luck too – the set was behind schedule, which meant the soundcheck became an unceremonious start, and the bass head cut out during “Blossom” (at least not until after the sick solo). Besides this, the band sliced through material old and new, including “Thermal Runway” and all three singles from Blossom. Guitarist/singer Katie Davies flexed their newfound vocal range on this fresh material, at times dropping the guitar to roam the stage. The rhythm section was as tight as ever, and live guitarist Frank Muir ripped a few noodly solos. Given the mishaps, it was not the best possible set from the band, but there should be plenty of brilliant Slicing on their tour with Employed To Serve later this year.
Dead Bird, bar
Knowing I wanted a good view of this screamo/post rock band, I timed my arrival to get a spot right at the front. I was treated to a passionate performance from the five-piece, who spilled into the audience given the comically small bar stage. The dry sound of their 2022 LP In The Absence Of was preserved in the live setting, as their guitarists preferred fuzz and simple effects rather than walls of glittery sound. This was a great compliment to the raspy vocals which switched between spoken word and scream-y yells. When the guitarist playing the lovely shell pink Jazzmaster gently suggested the audience should kneel, the whole room obliged. The ensuing jump prompted an immediate mosh that closed out the set. The only moment that wasn’t completely tight was due to a guitar strap mishap, prompting some smirks from the band in an otherwise bleak performance. Dead Bird did a brilliant job at transferring the drab atmospheres of their studio material into gratifying live performance.
Svalbard, main stage
The last band I saw before I became completely exhausted was Svalbard. Their wide ranging influences made them a perfect fit to Portals: blackened hardcore with wall-of-sound elements approaching shoegaze. Like Straight Girl the day before, a leg injury compromised Svalbard’s bassist; vocalist Serena Cherry seemed genuinely delighted that he was willing to risk a performance on it. This translated to a powerful set, with soaring guitars and brilliant drumming. Cherry was taken aback by the audience’s cheering, song after song. It’s rare to find a black metal influenced band that actually sing about things, as Svalbard skip the nature poetry and instead tackle topics like misogyny and social media algorithms. I’ll admit to experiencing some whiplash when these topics are so directly addressed, but then again, that’s exactly the point. The setlist included a throwback to their first record (“Disparity”), and concluded with the new single “Eternal Spirits”, a strong track that offers a bit of a preview to their upcoming release on Nuclear Blast.
Tiredness (and rail replacement buses) got the better of me after this, so I missed out on what I hear were great performances (Maybeshewill, Paranoid Void, Ef, Mono featuring Jo Quail, and Jambinai). I’ll wrap up by saying that the whole event was a huge success. EartH was a great space, as long as you are ready to take the windy one-way stairs between stages. The logistics of the event seemed smooth, with only a few performances being affected by poor stage setups. That’s impressive for a festival, and no contest compared to the stories you’ll hear about the other festival that happened over the weekend of 27th May 2023…
The excellent curation of Portals is already generating its own community of discovery. Take Ogives Big Band as an example: of the twenty similar artists on Spotify, sixteen played at Portals 2023. This indicates they’ve gotten plenty of plays from a nerdy fanbase that is ready to try out the unknown bands playing at 1pm. It was clearly Portal’s biggest year, upgrading their venue and significantly upgrading their bands. Seeing old shirts from previous Portals festivals highlighted the artist transition from “who’s that” in previous years to “who’s who” in 2023. Here’s hoping next year is nearly as good as this. You can monitor their social media feeds (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram) and website to stay up to date with future festivals and other events they are promoting.