afaik they were pretty much the starters of the thing that bands like Ulcerate would take further. Less chugging, less clinical death metal structure, more open and dissonant chords, more doomy passages and shit, etc.
Like, you would have Immolation and maybe Obscura-era Gorguts at the center, then Ulcerate would be one branch away from it, Portal another branch, etc. Although I'll admit that Portal has an uglier sound and more occult vibe iirc which is almost more of an Incantation thing, so maybe they're like Immolation writing with Incantation atmosphere with a lot of bullshit thrown on. I'm not trying to make a definitive claim onto the phylogeny of it all, but certainly if there was a first cohesive prototype to the sound, Immolation would be very close to it.
