PRIMORDIAL - To The Nameless Dead

8 songs
54:47 minutes
***** *****
Metal Blade

Bandpage

Two years after their phenomenal The Gathering Wilderness, Irish metal veterans are back with their sixth full length album To The Nameless Dead. Believe it or not, but these guys are still improving their original style. Founded twenty years ago, and releasing their debut in 1995, this Irish band may have belonged to some kind of black metal movement, and even today terms like Celtic or folk are abundantly used when talking about Primordial, but if you really have to compare them to something, I can only think of Bathory in their Hammerheart and Twilight Of The Gods era. Not that Primordial are at any time a copy. When you have such a long history to look at, you have had sufficient time to create your own style, which in Primordial’s case is very powerful heavy metal which is dominated by a distorted rhythm guitar that is playing never ending riff successions, and a singer whose vocals come from the depths of his guts. Don’t expect any growls or shrieks, here’s a real master at work who uses his natural voice in a tremendous way.

The songs are still long, except for the pointless intermezzo The Rising Tide, although no track is longer than nine minutes. There are also no atypical instruments like fiddles and whistles, which is another plus point for this band that never tries to suck up to the folk metal trend, even though they have obvious roots in old Celtic music.

Highlights include Failures Burden and No Nation On This Earth where Primordial pile up tons of heart warming pathos that are carried by the warm rhythm guitar sound. In a world where original metal bands needs to be looked for with a magnifying glass, Primordial are the exception to the rule. To The Nameless Dead is a small improvement over the previous already genial masterwork, and therefore not only deserves the maximum rating, but has now also been declared my favourite metal album of the year.