Primordial - To The Nameless Dead Review
by Mark Hensch
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There is no better name for a new Primordial album than To The Nameless Dead. Since their first release in 1993, Primordial has made a career out of their Irish culture. The Dublin based band's unique sound is a sort of melancholy, gray doom, tinged with Celtic legacy and European folk flourishes. With this 2007 album, it seems the band is paying tribute towards every Irish person who lived before them---The Nameless Dead indeed!
Though Primordial has always staked their reputation on mourning-filled power anthems, the songs on To The Nameless Dead have a raging ferocity that adds a whole new sense of urgency to the band's sound. Frontman A.A. Nemtheanga's soul-wrenching laments now contain a new potency, as the band backing him attacks with a much angrier, fiercer bent. The end result is a towering colossus of primal, ancient fury, the very soul of Ireland's troubled history turned into music.
Opener "Empire Falls" perfectly displays this notion and is worth the album alone. The song first kicks off with an acoustic introduction that conjures images of a Celtic Opeth. From there it erupts into the band's classic shambling squall, a sort of glacial driving force that contains fragile sadness and remarkable tenacity all at once. Nemtheanga's vocals crest and fall with remarkable agility, providing some of the most rousing, fist-pumping choruses put onto a metal album from 2007. This is majesty incarnate!
"Gallows Hymn," meanwhile, chooses initially to be more subdued. A muddy bass line stumbles drunkenly through a downpour of hazy, grim guitar passages. Just when one thinks the sorrow couldn't possibly intensify, the band kicks things into overdrive with a crushing tremolo-melody slowed to a dull crawl. Though the pace of the song is largely unwavering, subtle flourishes like drummer Simon O'Laoghaire's double-bass freakout keep things gripping.
"As Rome Burns" glides in on soaring drum rolls and thick, jangling guitar menace. When the brunt of Primordial's force hits, it is like a full-fledged medieval cavalry charge stampeding over one's face. The song attacks with a demented, churning groove, the likes of which eventually sinks into a disquieting passage of relative calm. This meditative passage recalls a Druidic Tool and truly caves chests when it bursts into a cascade of towering sound shortly thereafter. Add in some stabbing melodies and wicked drumming---"Burns" is clearly the gem of the album.
"Failure's Burden" is a somber groove. Chock full of stark melodies and driving rhythm, the song wallows in its own mid-paced sadness and wisely rocks out to the sounds of its own crushing gloom.
"Heathen Tribes" showcases a nod towards the band's common Irish ancestry, a rustic guitar progression leading the charge. This folksy melody dances shamelessly around coiling bass and tribal percussion, all before Nemtheanga begins his howling and yowling. The song wanders gloriously through these old-fashioned jams before busting out the overdrive and galloping on into fields of cleaving riffs and stoic melodies.
"The Rising Tide" is a largely unnecessary interlude of ominous rumbling, the likes of which leads into the much more intriguing "Traitors Gate." "Traitors Gate" blisters with crackling black metal rage. The song instantly launches into full-on blasting replete with face-erasing blastbeats and slicing speed-picking. Out of this comes epic, soaring guitars and soul-shredding screams, the likes of which stand in stark contrast to the earlier speed by utilizing nihilistic melancholy. After this, To The Nameless Dead ends with the gigantic "No Nation On This Earth." "No Nation" features a whirlpool of cathartic, grandiose sound. Simultaneously defiant and defeated, the song's musty cynicism perhaps captures the entire struggle of Ireland and the Irish in one eight minute song. Vast in scope yet always focused on providing a stifling, emotional atmosphere for the listener, To The Nameless Dead is a strong album from an innovative and challenging band. This is Primordial's best album yet.
Primordial's To The Nameless Dead
1. Empire Falls
2. Gallows Hymn
3. As Rome Burns
4. Failure's Burden
5. Heathen Tribes
6. The Rising Tide
7. Traitors Gate
8. No Nation On This Earth
CD Info and Links
Primordial - To The Nameless Dead Rating:8.5
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