Hagbulbia is the next step in Portal's evolution. In their never ending quest to make their music ever more inhuman they have ventured beyond the confines of metal and ventured directly into the maelstrom of noise. For many bands this would be a misstep, however for Portal this seems like just another album in their ever growing cacophony of insanity.
Hagbulbia on first listen, sounds like random static with The Curator yelling into the void at opportune moments. It is indeed a collection of static instead of riffs, a collection of pulses instead of drums, and noise instead of anything resembling music. For my first few listens I could not get past these huge barriers of entry and I shelved the album, it was simply too much.
I've tried to get back into the album for at least a dozen listens since... and failed. There is something worth listening to, but I couldn't break through...
I don't know if it's all the noise I've been consuming lately, or if it clicked but there is something under the noise that is worth my time. It's not simply static and pain... well... it actually is but there are reasons for it. The torture that the music gives expresses a level of emotion and chaos that simply is not possible within the confines of the metal genre.
Under the static there are riffs, you have to really dig for them but they are there... or maybe its my mind playing tricks on me. Under the noise there are traces of structure hidden in the mire, they are extremely hard to find... but once my mind became acclimated to all the chaos the smaller details become more evident.
Hagulbia resembles when I first discovered extreme metal, it was too much for me at first but I found myself having this morbid curiosity about it. I'm finding that again with a new genre, one that is pushing me further than I ever could have thought before.
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