primordial

Archive | Reviews | "Storm Before Calm" from Aphelium Mag, 2003

When living in a near coastal area one gets used of wild and raging storms from the west heading for the European mainland every now and then. Waves pounding upon the shores, thunder and lightning emerging from the evergrey skies, the wind raising fallen leaves high into the sky... Experiencing a rough and relentless side of nature, which invoking strong feelings of harmony and melancholy. Primordial's fourth full length studio effort somehow captures a sense of this harmonic roughness yet without leaving the eye of the storm, remaining control of things both tranquil and savage. On their fourth studio-album Primordial continues to move in the same direction as done on its precessor 'Spirit the earth aflame', epic, dramatic, firm sounding compositions with strong harmony lines and hypnotic, monotonous riffing in the typical way one's used from them. One of the differences when listening 'Storm before calm' is the more aggressive, fast riffing during certain parts of the album like during the opening track 'The heretics age', approaching things from a more blackened kind of view, creating a paradox like indicated in the album title. The main ingredients of this album are those one's got familiar with throughout the years; the doomy and harmonic rythym guitar parts with that typical sound, firm yet controlled mid-tempo riffing and the vocal department taken care of by mr. A.A. Nemtheanga, consisting of clean vocals and some incidental screams, emotionally proclaiming the lyrics, linked with one and other through an approach of past and present, like mentioned in the booklet.
All in all an album with a great feeling of might and melancholy, my advise to those interested is this : go out and get yourself this album, take your time with it, check out the lyrics and sense the atmosphere experiencing this album!

-9,5-
Rob Menschenfeind