PRIMORDIAL
Redemption at the Puritan's Hand2011
"So rise my brothers, rise from your graves
No grave is deep enough to keep us in chains"
Track 2: "Lain With The Wolf" by Primordial
No grave is deep enough to keep us in chains"
Track 2: "Lain With The Wolf" by Primordial
Primordial shall certainly sometime be sacrificed at the altar of their own genius. I can barely consider their quality, due to the absolute lack of flaw in their constant, chronological execution of the most epic music. In theme, in the burning fire of historical lyricism; in Alan Nemtheanga's passionate, discordant but preciously clear vocals, and how he makes important this fabricated realm of coffins, death, of some slight but unclear Magick; ideologically devoted to starvation and merciless pity; devoted to devotion, or just devoted - in summary, I do believe - to a quantity of metal hitherto not measured amongst men.
In my own life as a recording metal musician, I often listen to brilliance, and certainly to any generic fodder, and recognize that I know the tricks and think how I could make it myself. I suppose that is how a chef thinks when he sees a mysterious recipe before him. But, I do not know how to create any such resemblance of Primordial's grandeur. I could copy their lyrics down and study them for ages, I could move to Ireland and have a psychotic lapse into occult nationalism, I could play in a band with their guitarists -- yet I suspect the mystery is only that the technical aspects used to produce Primordial's primal blaze and rolling thunders, are actually of such simple craft that only these persons, as singular musicians before them, could synthesize them into something that seems so complex and complete. That is a sentient art. Where the music is not trying to be artful, but consists of a formula that came to be through true miracle - human folly and persistence.
All this exposition of awe is dangerously close to beatification, and I must be careful. Redemption at the Puritan's Hand is not close to being their best work. There remains nothing bad or mediocre or shallow about it; but the epochal, tune-changing release, The Gathering Wilderness, and the following perfection of this formula, To The Nameless Dead in 2007, are music in statue.
I do not wish to describe Primordial's genre, style or even technical proficiency. It all works, and you simply must hear them. Many Primordial fans prefer the more blackened, less winding material that came previous, but I must disbelieve them as simply nostalgists. I suppose there is a real chance that even epic, or viking metal fans might dislike this vein of "occult metal", but so many people now share my admiration for Primordial's ipseity that I confess; I feel like the prophet, and I can see the angels, and all that shit metalheads can see in the dark brightness.
Forget about the underground, the scattered occultists of black metal. 8-minute, viciously dramatic songs about burning or drowning Irish coffins presented with the rigeur of a Shakespeare monologue can work, three albums in a row ... It is a sin to beg for more.
rating: [4.5 / 5]
play time: 63 minutes
