Albums

Album Review: Primordial

[Album: To The Nameless Dead]
[Label: Metal Blade]

Primordial, Ireland’s first black metal band, have varied their style over the years finding solace in the production of steadily more melodic, epic pieces that have seen them subsequently labelled as folk, pagan or celtic metal. Their music certainly contains elements of this, with the later albums featuring more traditional Irish instruments, but it’s black metal where they are most certainly rooted having retained their bleak world view of life which is woven deep into their music and imagery.

With the band hitting the festival circuit hard this year including dates at Hellfest (France), Tuska (Finland), Graspop (Belgium), Wacken (Germany) and Hole In The Sky (Norway), to name but a few, it’s about time we took a closer look at Primordial’s latest album ‘To The Nameless Dead’.

It combines haunting dark melodies with fiercely roared vocals and trembling, raw-edged, overdriven guitar layers to create huge, ethereal walls of sound with steady rhythms and crashing cymbal sequences. ‘Gallows Hymn’ is a fine example of the epic space-filling sound that they are capable. ‘As Rome Burns’ begins with heavy, bass-boosted guitars which a thunderous echo of drums roll over before cannon blasts of guitar and bass repeatedly fire into the mix. Vocalist Alan Averill, a.k.a. A.A.Nemtheanga, ekes out a call to arms; an urging cry of pain amidst the cacophony.

‘Heathen Tribes’ brings to the fore the folk elements, that many have alluded to, with Celtic instruments resounding an intro before being kicked into touch by ear-splitting guitars of a deep, pistoning intensity. It’s a giant anthem of clenched fist and windmilled hair; probably one of their best to date. ’Traitor’s Gate’ is a black metal beast of double-kick and rolling toms under which slither a pure riot of guitar wash. The vocals downshift into whispered words before rising into an anguished bellow and it’s easy to imagine Nemtheanga, daubed in corpse paint, stretching his arms out, fists clenched, to coincide with it.

So, now that Primordial have an album of such stunning intensity from which to source their live material there has never been a better time to catch this awesome beast of a band. So get thee to one of their festival appearances without delay.
The full listings of the band’s Heathen Tribes Festival Tour can be found here.

For fans of: Enslaved, Wolves In The Throne Room, Drudkh
Band link = Primordial

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