Review by Felix on February 8, 2020.

Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae, released in 2011, confirms an old finding anew. An expressive artwork is helpful. Portrait's second work shines with a picture that mirrors the general heavy metal approach (the barren landscape and the grey clouds), the unruliness of the compositions (the gnarled trees) and their occult touch (the church in the distance). It makes simple minds like me curious to discover the music of the Swedes and I guess that only an insignificant number of confused suckers will be disappointed when they do the same. Okay, this disc is not a breathtaking masterpiece, but a very solid, sometimes exciting full-length.

It seems as if one cannot write a review for this album without dropping the name Mercyful Fate and I admit that tracks like "Infinite Descension" have much in common with the material of the Danish legend. The complex structures, the aforementioned occult aura or the vocal style build a resilient bridge to the dominion of the King. But the opener, for example, does not flirt with the outputs of the pioneers from Copenhagen. "Beast of Fire" is, despite its duration of almost eight minutes, pretty straightforward. The double bass motivates the entire group and a speedy number with some melodic leads and an alarming chorus is the result. The song does not border on thrash, but the frontier is in sight. Great instrumental parts combine velocity with melody and the band proves its high level of energy right from the beginning. The tingling "Bloodbath" takes the same course and leaves a lively aroma, too. If we take a sober view, these tunes deliver nothing else but traditional metal which is presented in a very fresh and sometimes stirring form. I don't hate the sub genres, by no means, but at times it feels good to get back to the roots.

One could discuss whether the album suffers from a lack of compactness. Seven songs and a pretty mediocre intermezzo deliver the stuff for nearly 54 minutes. These numbers indicate an imbalance and unfortunately, they tell no lies. Some songs do not really come to the point and they also fail to create a dramatic or epic structure. Tunes like "Der Todesking" (what kind of German English is this?) have a small number of attractive sequences, but they are simply too long. The band strives for variety and adds a calm part. Nevertheless, it seems as if the level of heaviness and intensity remains more or less the same during the entire nine minutes. Furthermore, the guitar work is surely ambitious, but without outstanding riffs or leads. Maybe I am just too picky, but the less rapid tracks rather convince with their honesty than with compositional excellence. Either way, honesty marks an important feature and therefore Portrait's album belongs to these albums I do not want to miss. And I cherish the fact that the band acts passionately. The clear, often high-pitched and more or less melodic vocals illustrate this as well as the guitar work that avoids ordinary lines and banal leads intelligently.

In terms of the production, Portrait do not deliver any kind of weak points. The album sounds like a tradition-conscious album should sound: powerful, clearly defined and (not overly) aggressive - and its last highlight ("The Passion") is another track which is definitely worth discovering. So, let's confirm another old finding anew. Authenticity and coherence can be the compensation for little musical deficiencies, at least to a certain extent. Thus, I guess that every old school metal maniac can lend an ear to Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae.

Rating: 7.2 out of 10

Review by Chris Pratl on October 23, 2018.

If you could imagine Mercyful Fate’s early music with the vocals reminiscent of King Diamond on the lower register you’d have the perfect picture of Portrait (no puns intended). This is one of the more exciting bands to come around the metal movement in some time. Hailing from Sweden, Portrait exercises and extends its might and muscle accordingly in its second go-round titled Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae, which is quite the journey into a dark and empty chasm of evil.

While not as blatant or emphatic about the satanic side of life as the Danish counterparts, Portrait conveys a particular sense of reserved educating when it comes to the topical reverence with which they operate. As opposed to being too over-the-top or egregious, the band manages a typically early traditional feel that does wonders for the medium in this chosen fashion. While a million bands try, both successfully and unsuccessfully, to tap into the Venoms, Slayers and Bathorys of the world, very few even attempt Mercyful Fate and even less than that achieve any sort of validity in doing so. The only band rivaled as an equal and even worth mentioning in this vein is In Solitude, also from Sweden. Between these two bands the die is cast for a future in traditional evil metal music. 

To the credit of Portrait they manage to channel the forces of early Fate but also keep true to their original ideas, and they have those in abundance. “Bloodbath” travels at a constricting light speed with some of the better guitar riffs I’ve heard from the traditional medium. What attracts me as well is the vocal melody that doesn’t stagnate into one pattern throughout each track and allows the music to let it carry the voice through the ears in direct opposition to over or under, which in this case would stultify it. The absolute perfection of the riffs and arrangements in these songs is amazing and lends credence to the assumption that this traditional style is still viable and wholly acceptable b the fickle masses. With a sharp production and massive attention to both the early 80’s sound and modernized ‘fullness’, Crimen… really drives home the new arrival of that wonderful traditionally evil metal that needs no pomp and circumstance to further its hallowed agenda.

The undeniable comparison to King Diamond is here throughout, and while Per Lengstedt doesn’t exactly pilfer Diamond’s legendary high-pitched falsetto he does enable a new generation to find total and subservient reverence in his delivery. In fact, and this might be sacrilege to say, I prefer this polished style that has a more lush tonal quality than the straight-shot one-dimensional effort King always gave. Hey, I go back with Mercyful Fate 28-years now and I love KD, so imagine how difficult it must be for me to say this. However, I’d rather pass the torch than see the style fade into eventual obscurity. Besides, Lengstedt has an almost Eric Adams feel to some of his higher registered vocalization, so the balance is certainly there, especially evident and honed to needle-point perfection in “The Nightcomers”, where the very core brilliance of Portrait shines through like a blacklight bulb.

This is a brilliant album from beginning to end, embracing and elevating all of the best elements of past glories and future accolades in one sitting. Metal Blade made a fine choice releasing this small piece of my past and a hungry current generation’s future.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

(Originally written for www.metalpsalter.com)

Review by Fernando on June 25, 2019.

To say that Peste Noire is a controversial band is a massive understatement in many ways. Founder and composer Famine have actively positioned his band to be polarizing and get a strong reaction from his listeners, at first this M.O. served him well, despite many people’s distaste for what this band represents and endorses, no one can deny that the music and their wild experimenting over the years was good. That isn’t the case in this album though.

Peste Noire have been praised for their outlandish and eccentric music, experimenting and playing around with a variety of genres and styles, from folk, to punk to even industrial music the band set out to continue this experimenting in this album but with their most baffling, outright incompetent and even mediocre results. This album is divided in two sides of five songs each; a “Traditional” side which is comprised of straightforward black metal and a “Degenerate” side which is comprised of the more experimental side. I’ll start addressing the latter over the former because this is the side of the album which in my opinion is the worst part of the entire album and some of the worst songs to come out of any black metal band and even any extreme metal project. 

First let’s address the elephant in the room; the experimentation with trap music and hip hop is terrible, Peste Noire had in the past incorporated industrial and electronic elements into their signature black metal style, in this album instead of using those genres as an addition, a seasoning if you will, Famine has instead attempted to fully mix trap music with black metal and the results are as I said, terrible, aside from how jarring and disjointed the album as a whole feels the trap parts are simply atrocious. The trap music parts of the album are extremely mediocre and even shocking that Famine, who has often being lauded for his musicianship, would release songs this poorly composed and this mediocre, I’m at a loss for words as to how bad this “experimentation” is, whether its intentional or as a joke to the listeners the incorporation of trap music comes off as a self-indulgent parody of the style, I’m not a fan of trap at all but this music sounds stereotypically bad, like what a diehard metal head would describe trap as; bad and dissonant synths, repetitive beats and vocal performances that do not even try to flow with the music and a general apathy for quality control, Famine is still using his usual raspy shouts for this but his performance sounds intentionally lazy and artificial, like he’s aware of how bad this sounds and doesn’t even care to perform well.

Then there’s the “Traditional” part of the album, the first half which opens it and the best way to describe this album is simply as mediocre, it sounds like outtakes from Peste Noire’s first 3 albums, there’s no experimentation, no innovation and no breaking of the mold, the biggest tell of this shocking display of apathy is the 2 recycled and rerecorded songs; “666 millions d'esclaves et de déchets” and “Des médecins malades et des saints séquestrés” taken from their Macabre Transcendance... demo and their infinitely superior debut album.

The final aspect I’m going to address are the lyrics, first and foremost Peste Noire is a band I don’t feel comfortable recommending due to the political and provocative nature of their lyrics in general but that’s beside the point, good music is good music regardless of what their authors support or promote (death of the artist). However in the first half of the album you get what you usually expect from Peste Noire; punk like screeds about anarchy, French ancestry and so on but on the trap side of the album, the lyrics feel extremely self-indulgent, ham-fisted and again like if Famine is having a laugh at the expense of the listeners, the song "Turbofascisme" has a reference to the Pepe internet meme, again I don’t know what’s the motive or reasoning here, the entire “Degenerate” side of the album whether if it’s because Famine is playing around with trap music which is criticized for having extremely simplistic and even dumb lyrics is unknown to me, there’s certainly an urban or street aspect to this side of the album but due to the reasons I’ve been stressing it really comes off as an insulting joke where the only one laughing is Famine.

It’s easy to just say this album is bad but the worst part of this album is how it feels like an elaborate joke on Famine’s part, it’s no secret the man enjoys the infamy and negative press that Peste Noire gets, he famously recorded Folkfuck folie in poor conditions to scare off the people that praised La Sanie des siècles, but beyond whatever intentions Famine had with this record this album is simply a mediocre mess, it fails in being what it set out to do; a simultaneous “return to roots” and experimenting with the current popular music, its disjointed, misguided and as an experiment it fails the basis of failing to understand why trap music has gotten so omnipresent in the mainstream. The first half is a retread of past efforts but with better production and the second half is again, a botched experiment. I do not recommend this album to anyone, if you want to a better album that succeeds where this album failed, stick to L'Ordure à l'état pur.

Rating: 0.5 out of 10