Metal Ob's Magazine, www.metalobs.com

Firstly, who is speaking (name, function…)?  

Nemtheanga  - vokills and propaganda 

About your first official DVD called All Empires Fall, are you totally satisfied of the final product? I find it complete, full and also very authentic, genuine! 

Yeah it turned out great I think. Very unique with a great atmosphere. Not overloaded with tons of the same shows but has enough. The documentary came out pretty well also.

To Alan : a few words about the Blood Revolt experience last year, please ? (Note that visiting your official Myspace website for my review, I met a virus on my computer cause it was a fake… L) 

Well I don’t know anything about that, myspace is as dead as dead could be so nothing would surprise me. It’s a pointless website now. Few words like what? It’s an awesome and powerful album, original and crushingly violent. If you haven’t go t it then order it now from www.invictusproductions.net 

In 2009 if I’m right, you toured in the USA and in Canada because you took part of the Pagan Fest with Korpiklaani and Moonsorrow (listen to the new Moonsorrow album, it’s fantastic !! J). These two bands played live recently for the Pagan Fest also in Paris (with Vreid, Unleashed and Kivimetsan Druidi… in March) but I missed them ! Do you remember this event and what are your best and fun memories of this North American tour? 

Yeah we’ve toured quite a few times with Moonsorrow. Cool guys and a good band. We share a lot of common ground with them. I have great memories of this tour, really good crowds and positive people every night. Genuinely excited by the bands on the tour and finally we got to play for some old old fans. All of the West Coast was a highlight for me! 

And how was this American audience in front of Primordial live? How did they react ? Do you have many fans? Because I guess American people are not maybe very familiar with your kind of Pagan/folk Black Metal… It’s not their culture (except unique bands like Absu for example, etc.). 

Maybe in Canada the younger crowd was not as familiar but again very enthusiastic, but as the crowds got older and especially in America we were bringing our own crowd as well. Don’t forget we have a long history. Absu is really more for death metal and black metal people in the States. Primordial also brings some traditional heavy metal and doom fans. I can’t really think of a single night where even a small crowd didn’t really get into it at the end. 

After releasing a such good album like To The Nameless Dead which was perfect  and well received by press and fans, how and where have you found again the energy and inspiration to compose and create this seventh new studio album? How stimulate yourself?

It takes time. After we release an album we have about 12-18 months of playing gigs here and there where we don’r really work on new music. When the time is right we start to put some ideas down. We aren’t a professional band so we always have a break from things and I think this means we are not tired or jaded when we begin again. There are always new struggles and challenges to meet and overcome. 

Could you explain the title of the new album : Redemption At The Puritan’s Hand, please?

It’s really about being godless or faithless and standing on the outside, looking at religion and the structures people put in place to make sense of their fear of death. It’s also about the search for redemption, making peace with the beast inside yourself. Or at least trying to…if we succeed or fail is open to question. I would say we fail.

Is it a concept album and what are the main topics in the new lyrics written by Alan, I suppose? 

It’s not really a concept album, there is a loose strain of thought going through most of the album and this is our relationship to death. You could call it the death album. There are of course other things up against the wall this time. Religion, sex, death, faith, revelation, redemption and sacrifice. 

In general, your lyrics are based on the past events. In one way, are you nostalgic, and so do you like our life, our existence in 2011, in this XXIst century?

No they aren’t. you obviously haven’t been reading them? They are not fantastical or escapist. They may sometimes have elements of history within them but they are most definitely rooted in the here and now and have allegories and morality tales for the 21^st century. I’m not that nostalgic, life is about creating stories and I am still doing that. I have plenty to work towards.

Could we say PRIMORDIAL still plays Black Metal music nowadays cause there’s only a little bit of Black Metal vocals and the guitar riffs are not very aggressive, but very melodic and melancholic…? You see what I mean? 

You could say that, you are a journalist after all. I’ve seen us called pagan power metal so it takes all sorts of opinions. I think plenty of the riffs are aggressive actually, for example The Black hundred or No grave deep enough on the new album are definitely aggressive. We always have a mixture of tragedy and might.  

Who is singing with Alan on the track #4 called “Golds Old Snake”, at the end of the song exactly? I could say Tom G. Warrior from Triptykon and former of the mighty Celtic Frost… And more generally, are there special guests on this new album? 

The sampled voice in the middle of Gods old Snake is Alestier Crowley? I am singing at the end of the song? There is another sample during The Black Hundred which is Russian orthodox basso profondo singing.  

Is it easy for you to record and capture/take the essence and the feelings of your music when you’re working in studio because your music is unique and according to me: it’s on stage where you really express truly actually, don’t you? Do you agree with that? 

I agree with that. I generally find the studio tedious and sometimes boring. I prefer to work in 2 hour bursts of energy and then leave things. I don’t have the attention to detail the other guys do. Mixing is fucking horrible. The again maybe recording in an old farmhouse with no heating when it’s -16 outside could be the problem! 

How is the Metal scene now in Ireland? Do you find there’s an evolution since your arrival in the Metal scene at the end of 1980’s? 

I don’t know. In many ways I prefer the old scene. People were enthusiastic and I know so many people still into metal from 89/90/91 who never gave up whereas I see kids now come in and out of the scene all the time in 2 years. Google attention span. The internet changed everythning of course but that’s not only metal. There are better bands now, getting out and touring and playing abroad. 

Two weeks ago, I interviewed Andrew James Cairns from the famous Irish band Therapy? by e-mail. They’re in studio now. Do you know him personally though you live in Dublin if I’m right? 

Dublin has a population of 1.2 million people mate? No I don’t know those guys, we never played with them or shared a stage together. I guess they were the last big Irish rock band back in the mid 90s. Long time ago now. Never liked them but respect what they did. 

To conclude, it was Saint Patrick day last 17^th of March. Do you make party for this famous Irish band and what does represent this event for you, as Irish man/men? 

Haha. No not really. Most people from Dublin unless you are looking for a fight avoid the city on st patricks day. It’s usually a mess of street fights, puking, women falling over, broken glass and blood. Not much to be proud of.