Detonation has been plagued with bigger and lesser disasters this year. Right before the initial scheduled recordings of “Portals To Uphobia” drummer Thomas injures his shoulder, thus forcing the band to postpone the recording sessions. Then, the initial mix for “Portals...” was such a disappointment that it had to be redone and as a result of that, the release date could not be maintained. And last but not least the big three-week European tour with Gorerotted, Decapitated and Dam fell through when the tour bus broke down and the replacement bus had less sleeping places so Detonation wouldn’t fit in. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next album would be doom metal, which would almost be fitting.

But, back to the object of this review: Has Detonation been able to top the critically acclaimed debut album “An Epic Defiance”?
The answer to that is wholeheartedly Yes! “An Epic Defiance” already was a very good death/thrash album in the vein of At The Gates and Dark Tranquility but “Portals…” is better, in terms of songwriting, playing and production. Hell, even the front cover is better (done by Niklas Sundin from dark tranquility).

Detonation has in the past been accused of being mere At The Gates clones and although they have traces of Gothenburg death metal in their music and their style is ofcourse death/thrash, the only band I can come up with this time as a comparison is …..Detonation.
The album begins fast with three typical Detonation tracks. The fourth track “Chaos Banished” is a little different from the first three, it shows Detonation in its more melodic form: a little less aggressive, no blast beats but still heavy.
The following “End Of Sight, End Of Fears” has the same feel to it but the track after that is the most out of place of this album.

“Lost Euphoria part III” is an instrumental piece that may be called experimental. Spanish guitars are by no means common in metal are they?

After the “interludes” it’s time again for familiar ground: “The Loss Of Motion Control” is another one in the Detonation tradition and by now it’s apparent that every regular track on “Portals...” (thus excluding track 4-6) follows more or less the same pattern: a fast begin, a melodic mid-piece and a fast end. Even the album as a whole has the same structure: three fast tracks, 3 mellow ones and at the end 4 heavy tracks.
This is not saying that all track same the same because they are definitely are not but this is just something that I noticed and that singer Koen explained as pure coincidence, they’ve noticed it themselves as well but because it was the result of a spontaneous process they decided to go ahead with it.

Speaking of Koen, what a marvelous voice this guy possesses. His grunt is not the most brutal you’ll ever hear but the amount of aggression contained within it is staggering. He also forms the guitar tandem with guitarplayer Mike and their twin guitar work is very significant for the sound of Detonation.
The production by Hans Pieters, done at the Excess Studios in Rotterdam, the Netherlands is more than average, giving Detonation the power they need to convert their aggression into musical deeds.

(Roy)