Primordial

Journey’s End (Misanthropy)
by Paul Lee

You might think a magical country like Ireland would produce plenty of great metal bands. Alas, few have surfaced until very recently in the form of a quartet of Celts called Primordial. Journey’s End is Primordial’s second release (first for Misanthropy), and it’s a damned fine collection of heavily Celtic-influenced songs similar to My Dying Bride with shades of Iron Maiden. Primordial’s debut, Imrama, was released on Cacophonous Records (famed for putting out Cradle of Filth’s first two albums) in 1995. Primordial were categorized as black metal-influenced Celtic metal, and since that release, they’ve done some serious growing. Journey’s End shows hardly any black metal flourishes.

Categorizing Primordial as merely a metal band would be doing these four lads a huge disservice. Their music is as passionate as it is spiritual, and travels well beyond the boundaries of traditional metal. Primordial are as adept at writing subtle acoustic folk songs as they are at epic and emotional metal. They even had the balls to put the folksy “Dark Song” as the second track on the CD with its lovely acoustic guitars, flute, and hand-held drums. On songs like the opener, “Graven Idol,” and “Journey’s End,” Primordial create vast, sweeping tunes with a strumming style, both electric and acoustic, with a very distinctive Celtic edge. N. Nemtheanga’s voice has a low, melodic quality, and is even more expressive than My Dying Bride’s Aaron or Type O Negative’s Peter Steele. Journey’s End has already taken me on many an auditory odyssey and will continue to do so in the future. One of the finest metal albums released this year.
(PO Box 9 Hadleigh, Suffolk IP7 5AU England)