Ah another chance to reminisce and dribble as I review this particular album. Primordial may well be a band who are respected above many in the world of metal these days, even by the idiots who dismissed them as being boring on first hearing them (yep these people sadly exist) but back on my first encounter with them I knew they were going to be a rather special band. That takes me back to the first London show at (well rather aptly) The Dublin Castle where a handful of us saw them play tracks from this very album as they shared the tiny stage with Occult, Bal Sagoth and Gomorrah. Imrama was one of many albums I pirated before the days of things like MP3 or even recordable CD onto one side of a trusty 90 minute cassette. I still blow the dust off the ones I have not managed to get on proper CD and give them a play every now and again. Now I can fling this aside as Metal Blade have released the album with polished sound, extra demo tracks and even a DVD of some songs, which are not on my download review copy and so yes I will still have to ultimately buy the album. So what makes a skint, tight bastard like myself want to have the full release? Well it’s a classic album of its time and one that has not aged badly at all, certainly with this revamped sound which even on my PC speakers sounds fantastically loud and sparkling.
Sounding, pagan and Celtic we go into ‘Fuil Arsa’ with a lone strumming guitar chord and suddenly everything else just crashes to earth around it. The melody is fantastic and this is instantly stirring and evocative stuff, containing all the passion that the band have about them a decade and a half later. Nemtheanga is introduced in native tongue at first virtually as a narrative force before going into the highly flung vocal screams that had this lot first lumped into the developing black metal scene around them. Alternating between the screech and spoken parts we are flung into the hurly-burly ‘Infernal Summer’ one that has visages of scorched barren crop fields and heath land on fire as I listen to it, perhaps the fiery guitar fervour emphasising the vision. The clear croons are fantastic even at this early stage of the groups career and I find myself thinking that if every band waited till they were this proficient to release their debut album there would be so much less fodder weighing us down.
There are plenty of moments here that send shivers down my spine, when the singer cries out the album title on ‘The Darkest Flame’ is one and this is swiftly followed by the clean chant opening of ‘The Fires…’ with croons sung with sincerity and theatrical command. There is almost a concept here and elementally fire is very much a case topic, one the band would obviously continue with on later albums. ‘Let The Sun Set On Life Forever’ was probably the introduction for many to Primordial as it appeared on what, if I remember well (cannot find it despite looking) was the best ever cover mount CD on a magazine courtesy of Metal Hammer. The chilling vocals “All my life I’ve waited for you,” ring true as this has been a band have been as close to a love affair musically for me since hearing them. One cannot review this without also mentioning the acoustic pagan number ‘Beneath A Bronze Sky’ with traditional pipe and drums, this is another magickal moment that takes the listener into days gone by and has them dreaming as it ebbs and flows toward album’s feral closer ‘Awaiting The Dawn.’
To go with this we get the groups debut demo, ‘Dark Romanticism’ originally released in 1993. ‘To Enter Pagan’ later released as part of a split with Katatonia shows exactly where the group first came from. The production may well be rawer but its certainly good enough quality to enjoy as the vocals rasp and drums thunder away. This sounds like battle metal well before the genre was coined, harsh and feudal and the sound of warriors marching into war. It is also very interesting noting how the vocal arrangements on ‘The Darkest Flame’ would develop from here to the album.
There are some fantastic re-releases coming out at the moment and when the record company goes that extra mile they can be well worth picking up. This is certainly one such example of an essential purchase if you do not have the original and perhaps even if you do. I am going to moan about preferring the original cover art again but it’s pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
Oh and any Americans and Canadians reading this, if they are touring near you see them at all costs! Sales pitch done.
http://primordialweb.com
http://www.myspace.com/primordialofficial
