To the right, a host in the shape of a goat. To the left, a mighty sword next to a priest’s severed head. In the middle, a light, some kind of energy discharge or a portal opening. These are all powerful images, which go hand in hand with the heavy metal darkness of PORTRAIT!

The Swedes have arrived at album number six, and are soon to pass the milestone of twenty years of existence, together with an endless wave of Swedish heavy metal bands (ENFORCER and RAM being other notable mentions from the same time period). Although, I’m fairly new to the band (“At One With None” was my first encounter), listening to some of their older material and having absorb this new one, I consider them to be one of the crucial torchbearers of heavy metal with imbued extreme metal DNA.

“The Host” is a massive seventy minutes plus concept album about war, treachery, devilish pacts, loss and revenge. Yes, you read that right. In 2024. Now, is that a daring move or an approach that seems futile in the world of fragmented attention spans. A band like PORTRAIT adheres to the passion of creating quality music, disregarding commercial ambition. The fans who latch onto their songs and albums are the heavy metal lifers, those who know!

The intro sets a foreboding tone before lead single “The Blood Covenant” rips through the speakers with fast galloping rhythms, flashes of death metal riffage and the piercing KING DIAMOND inspired falsettos of Per Lengstedt, a bonafide stormer of an opener! There’s this extreme metal temper showing up on several songs, like “Sword Of Reason” (The Steel Of Revenge)” and “Sound The Horn” that really catapult the peaks of the dramatic story. On the other hand, one finds a slow atmospheric black metal riff during the opening seconds of “Voice Of The Outsider”, and epic metal grandeur in the eleven minute closing “The Passions Of Sophia” conjuring more reflective states of the protagonist.

It’s clear from the get-go that this isn’t the kind of metal music that’s dressed in bonehead testosterone or colourful fantasy worlds with jovial melodies and lyrics about dragons and rainbows. “One Last Kiss” could be a lost MORGANA LEFAY track from the nineties, as it has that same melancholic feel and steers away from orthodox ballad structures. Of course there’s catchy hooks, in fact there’s plenty of catchy hooks, but there’s a lot of thought put into the songwriting and the lyrical themes are tragic and wicked, reading more like a dark heavy / power metal album.

Without a doubt one of my favorite heavy metal albums of 2024. There’s so much great stuff to take away from “The Host”, be it the plethora of awesome riffs, melodies and solos, the unique sound production, the passionate performances, the excellent and metal as hell plot and the thrilling flow of the story, and the fact that the band manages to execute well over an hour of excitement and intensity. Elite class!

Here’s a band that is in service to the heavy metal order but is also morphing into something genuine and singular. “The Host” delivers and then some! Remember the word PORTRAIT. Hallowed be thy (band) name!