TOWN PORTAL - The Occident
June 17, 2015, 8 years ago
(Small Pond/Subsuburban)
Instrumental prog isn't exactly everyone's vision of an ideal Saturday night, but Denmark's Town Portal has taken the concept to unique places while incorporating the types of singular and instantly recognizable basslines Tool writes so effortlessly alongside moments destined for a hypothetically metal Mogwai (i.e. a Mogwai made up of members who don't say things like "they're shite" when asked about Metallica performing at Glastonbury 2014). The Occident – Town Portal’s third release – also reminds of long-forgotten Vermont instrumental prog band The Cancer Conspiracy, a group that wrote a genuinely great song in 2001 called “The Summer Of Andy” - it’s what Rush would have sounded like in 1984 if the keyboards hadn’t taken up all the space - but broke up shortly thereafter in 2003. But we digress.
Town Portal might actually be closest, spiritually at least, to The Flower Kings, both groups sharing a real fondness for
better-times-are-on-the-horizons major keys, even if Town Portal is edgier: if one imagines The Flower Kings sipping lattes in Starbucks, then Town Portal is ordering straight-up espresso at The Elk in New York City’s West Village. Which is a long way of saying that if you like instrumental prog that isn’t calculus, isn’t mean and isn’t too acerbic, but is still listenable and unique, Town Portal is ready to fill that void.
