Helvetets Port - Exodus To Hell

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I think the best introduction for HELVETETS PORT can be what is written in their Internet page: “Our mission is to make you believe that it is 1983 all over again.”. Or as their “Heavy Metal Night” song says: “At last, so fast, we hit the stage, we are a band from the past”.

If you also pay a visit to the MySpace page of these Sweds you will read for their influences names as GOTHAM CITY, HEAVY LOAD, ZONE ZERO(!) or the Swedish BEHEMOTH (!!!) among others. Real old school worship no bullshit, they probably have an altar of Pang Records worshipping in their houses, haha! But, does their love for such obscurities can create an album worth listening to?

Truth is that in most times HELVETETS PORT sounds very 'ear pleasure' with their Heavy tunes and surely is one of the very few bands that sound so close to GOTHAM CITY and HEAVY LOAD. So, if every day you wake up and before going to work instead of coffee your breakfast is listening to songs as GOTHAM CITY’s “Borderline” then here is something that is absolutely for you. Besides the Swedish band's adoration inside “Exodus To Hell” you will notice many N.W.O.B.H.M. references from IRON MAIDEN to TOKYO BLADE, ancient MANOWAR and MANILLA ROAD. Although in the beginning their stuff created to me something hm, like perplexity, you known finding difficulties in following their song’s fluxion, this was ‘cause of some weird riffing agglutination, after a few listens I found a lot of real inspiring tunes. Some of them have a fiery spirit inside grabbing you for headbanging lunacy, like “Helvetets Port”, “Killed By A Ripper”, “Dying Victim Of The City”, “Exodus To Hell” and “Fly By Night” (to name some). Some others are a bit weird but include some nice ideas and some others are boring, at least if I compare them with the above first.

This CD version comes with three bonus songs and one of them, “Swing The Studded Mace”, is one of their best and far away from the others. These tracks were released in the beginning of 2007 as a 7” single by Iron Bonehead Records under the name “Metal Strike”.

In general HELVETETS PORT has a dynamic to do something worth checking out, but sometimes I see a proclivity to mediocrity. Also I found the absence of solos inside their songs quite bad. Only three of them include something, with “Diamond Claw” and “Exodus To Hell” being the best times. Last, and to get a better idea of what this band is all about, check below the fantastic video of “Lightning Rod Avenger”; a video that I liked a lot. This song is also a highlight for HELVETETS PORT although it - so far - remains unreleased.