I thought Portal were way older than DsO.

I, for instance, think that the main influence of those death/black dissonant acts are Incantation and Immolation. Incantation for the oppressive atmosphere and Immolation for the dissonant riffing. The rest of their differences depends from the rest of the elements, like Ulcerate using Gorguts/DsO elements as well (and obviously some Portal-esque structures). In fact, most of the death metal regurgence has some kind of dissonance in their riffing and try to convey a heavy atmosphere, which Portal already excelled to perfection, serving as model to many of them, especially in the chromatic riff aspect of the music.

About the more black metal bands related to this 'scene', DsO might have been the main influence for this new bands as well, but I recall hearing some of that riffing earlier, like in Darkthrone's Ravishing Grimness, Thorns and in some extent, Gorgoroth and Mayhem (also vocally, Attila was a huge influence for DsO and related stuff), In fact, an aspect that I've always heard in these new bands is the avantgarde elements brought by Virus, Ved Buens Ende, Manes, Fleurety, Dodheimsgard and such. I'm positive that DsO and many others are fond of Virus and Especially Ved Buens Ende's jazzy/dissonant riffing, dynamic drumming, as well as the apparent lack of structure on their songs.

I don't know about Immolation. None of the bands manage or want to to create the catchy, headbangable quality to their dissonant riffing that makes Immolation so great. The same goes for Incantation, although new bands' attempts to ape their dissonant style is well documented.

Well, Portal explicitly cites Immolation as a major influence. "Our strongest musical influences from the formative years were Morbid Angel, Beherit and Immolation, the three that we can all agree on." as interviewed in http://www.voicesfromthedarkside.de/Interviews/PORTAL--7050.html , (emphasis added). Whether any of these bands manages to match up to their influences is obviously a judgement call though.

I can definitely understand the Morbid Angel influence, especially the demo-Abominations - even Altars era which had some very twisted riffs going on and was less easy to categorize.

Portal sounds nothing like Morbid Angel or Beherit either.

You should listen with more attention to the pre-Blessed/Altars era Morbid Angel. It's the oldest I can relate to that kind of dissonant/twisted riffing. Morbid Angel's first works shouldn't be understimated, they influenced too many bands and styles to count, especially in death and black metal; even today you can easily identify MA's elements in other bands.

Obviously I can't dispute that Morbid Angel uses dissonant riffing, but I insist that the bands sound nothing like each other. It's similar to comparing Gorgoroth and melodeath; both used the same chord progressions and similar tonality quite extensively, and yet they sound unlike.

Out of those three, Immolation is the most like Portal.

Well, I guess you were right and I'll have to backpedal since Portal did state that Immolation is an influence. It's just that, to me, stamping Immolation as merely "atonal death metal" is missing the point by a massive margin, but that doesn't mean that only the atonality Vigna's riffing (and perhaps other elements aswell) couldn't have influenced these bands, whereas the music's arguably more important elements weren't implemented.

Well, while both bands might use certain elements in different ways, the basis of their sound can be the same; like Gorgoroth, Dissection/Dawn or melodeath abuse the harmonic minor scale and the baroque styled songwriting, we can safely say all of them had a similar basis but different execution, which is what I was trying to say by pointing Morbid Angel as an influence. To my knowledge, no one wrote riffs like that before Trey did.

Another band in the same wave is Ritual Necromancy.
I tend to find them a little more "accessible" than the other cavernous-claustrophobic-atmospheric DM bands in the genre, but Oath of the Abyss is certainly a good album.

Muknal deserves also a mention.

Another connection of this scene to war metal are the Aussie bands - go poking around at band pages for stuff like Portal, Impetuous Ritual and Ignivomous and you'll notice a lot of crossover with the Aussie brand of war metal (D666 etc). Granted, the Aussies are typically more thrashy than grind-ish stuff like Blasphemy, but there's still surely some crossover between the various flavors of war metal.

Anyway, I sort of see a spectrum, with really dissonant stuff like Portal at one end, and stuff like Cruciamentum or Disma at the other. There may be some grindy war metal influence in the more chaotic/dissonant parts but generally I think the biggest influence on this stuff in general is Incantation though there's a clear black metal streak running through it all, to varying degrees. I'm not sure there's a direct connection to DsO and their followers; I think rather that this type of death metal and that type of black metal tend to share influences, rather than one influencing the other. Depending especially on where it's from, you also find traces of stuff like Gorguts, Demigod, Demilich, swedeath, etc.

Generally I really dislike the more chaotic bands in the style (Impetuous Ritual, Mitochondrion, especially Antediluvian) with the exception of Portal, who are so far off the deep end they're almost more of a weirdo extreme metal influenced noise band than a proper death metal band. Going back toward the riffier, doomier end of the spectrum, I really quite like stuff like Disma and Cruciamentum, even moreso than Incantation themselves.

Interesting subject, I don't know how I missed it when it was originally posted. I quite enjoy this style. I like pretty much most of the bands that have been mentioned with Portal, Mitochondrion and Antediluvian being my favourite. For a long time I felt that modern death metal was largely becoming stagnant (with the exception of a few diamonds in the rough, of course). As for the genre classification, I kind of disagree with most of these bands being death/black. They certainly do share an atmosphere more commonly associated with black metal and feature lots of tremolo riffs (although tremolo riffs in extreme metal obviously does not automatically equate it with black metal). Despite these things, there is not much actual black metal in their music. It comes off more as weird, dissonant and experimental black metal. I also think many of these bands have their fare share of doom influences, on the more extreme side of the genre. As for the bestial/war metal overlap, I can see how they have a few things in common, but I don't think it's a huge part of these band's sound, at least not on the surface.

Some of these bands are being dubbed "post-death metal" (a stupid fucking tag, it seems that whenever you experiment with atmospherics within a genre some pretentious douche comes along and adds "post" to the genre name), and they do seem to share a few similarities to the whole post-metal/atmospheric sludge thing and perhaps even the post-black movement. The two most notable bands tagged as this are Ulcerate and Flourishing. I believe Ulcerate is because of the Neurosis influence. Flourishing have done some really interesting stuff with their atmosphere without sacrificing riffing or songwriting. I don't think actual post-rock has anything to do with either of the bands, but many of the bands given the "post" prefix have little to none actual post-rock in their sound.

Although perhaps not the greatest article, this touches on what I just mentioned:
http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2011/02 ... ath-metal/

Sorry, I can't say I really hear any Neurosis in Ulcerate. To be fair I've only heard Everything is Fire but to me it sounded like they wanted to mix Immolation with Gorguts and then excise almost all of the groove. I know they've talked about stuff like Neurosis and whatnot being influences but I just don't hear it in the music. I also hear a higher quotient of brutal death metal in Ulcerate than in a lot of the bands being discussed, which sort of sets them apart from the "cavernous death metal" thing in a way.

i can hear neurosis like elements in ulcerate. To me they seem more like an attempt to mix from wisdom to hate with neurosis than gorguts with immolation.

The Neurosis elements are more or less limited to the build and release type stuff they did on EoF, the actual riffs are Gorgutsy as hell, and that last turd didn't have the Neurosis-y stuff much.

Also, PAROXSIHZEM fit somewhat into the dark black/death realm. PSEUDOGOD, EMBRACE OF THORNS, CHARON, MUKNAL, CHASM OF NIS, PROSANCTUS INFERI, TYRANT GOATGALDRAKONA are a few others worth mentioning. I consider my band EXEQUY black/death with a militant vibe.

I don't think that your band belongs in the same category, but it's still fucking badass, nonetheless. You should grab Knelt Rote and come play a show in Vancouver.

Carbonized anyone? I mean Disharmonization just about sums it up. Not nearly as brutal but man were they ahead of their time. One of the few bands I don't cringe at when someone says they were at least mildly jazz-influenced.

No.

Could Kommandant be considered blackened death? I know most people generally categorize them as a war metal band, but musically I think they're definitely blackened death.

war metal basically is a specific form of black/death....

Pretty much this, minus the last one being a turd; every now and again I get an itch to listen to it because the depth in sound on that album is pretty great. Granted, I like EiF a lot more because it's way more intense and claustrophobic. Apaprently they're entering the studio to record a new one, after a short tenure with Willowtip...I wonder what impact that will have on their music. Even if the album leaves a lot to be desired like the last one, I'm sure there will be a handful of cool riffs.

Speaking of Ulcerate, lately I feel like Adversarial's stuff they recorded for their split with Antediluvian is my favorite material that falls along the lines of dissonant, open-sounding death/black metal. "Spiraling Towards The Ultimate End" is by far my favorite song from 2012, and every riff, to me, is

Eh, I liked the Destroyers of All a lot. The drumming was and sounded immense, while the riffs are quite distinct and just engulf you in atmosphere. Just as good as EiF, if you ask me.

Destroyers of All is far from being a "turd" and it didn't stray too far from Everything is Fire. I can't see anyone liking one, but not the other, if that's what was being inferred.

I just don't like it as much.

Nope I hated it. I felt that was just jangly and wanky for the sake of it, with none of the intense builds in pressure that made EiF so good. The drumming also got way too complex and completely ignored what the rest of the band was doing. The whole thing sounds like a sloppy mess to me, its like bad worship of EiF with none of the finesse or care.

weird... i tend to actually prefer destroyers, if ever so slightly, mostly because of the interesting drumming - the dragging guitars and breakneck drums make for an incredible contrast that i find creates a very uneasy impending doom feel similar to portal; like something enormous moving incredibly fast, but appearing slow because of its distance