Liste der Bands Heavy Metal Portrait (SWE) Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae

Back to 1983 King Diamond and the two angels of darkness Hank Sherman and Michael Denner created one of the most dangerous and dark albums in the history of heavy metal, Melissa and the next year they gave us the second and more perfect than the previous called Don’t Break The Oath. Now, 27 years later the trustworthy and capable musicians and followers of Mercyful Fate, Portrait, release an album which continues from where Don’t Break The Oath stopped and it is even faster and sharp!

By hearing Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae one time you will not be able to remember any of the songs or their rhythm and this because, although there are eight songs you think that you heard 16 songs. This thought is the result of the last of the songs and because in just one song you can find so many different riffs that you find in a whole album of another band. “Beast of fire” sets you in the quickness of the album, smart and fresh riffs following the diabolic way of the preachers, an unstoppable drumming and a voice close to this one of King Diamond.

Christian Lindell and Richard Lagergen are the brains of Portrait and the best students of their masters. They play side by side, the one completes the other, they can be dangerous and aggressive “Infinite descension” and melodic too “The wilderness beyond”. The second one we can say that it is the absolute continuity of “To one far away” and suddenly the brain begins travelling. Those two guitar players will be the best guitar duo in the future of heavy metal and both their riffs and solo will remain etched in the mind and insurmountable.

Songs like “Darkness forever”, “The nightcomers” and “The passion” are full of fast and alternating riffs and solo and the strangest about these songs is the absence of choruses, but this is not a drawback, it can be regarded as something innovative in our music. In the song “Bloodbath” can you count all the different riffs? I just lost the counting! This voice of Per Karlsson brings back beautiful and lost memories and it is able to haunt our minds and nights whether he sings normal or high.

This album could not be more perfect, inside it there are all the characteristics of the primary black and extreme heavy metal, all the legacy of Mercyful Fate and also some clues of N.W.O.B.H.M. are well hidden in it so that you have to listen to it many times to reveal them and to find out the real beauty of it. The first album of Portrait, Portrait, is regarded just a nice album or the little spark for this holocaust consisted of satanic ideas. Do you see the house on the painting? You think that it is only a picture, an illusion, but actually, you have already entranced it and guess what… the door is closed, you are not able to return, the last song “Der Todesking” is the last dose of poison which runs your blood. You belong to someone else now!