Band: Primordial
Title: A Journey’s End
Label: Metal Blade Records
Distribution: Rough Trade Benelux.
Release date: 28/08/2009
Review: Re-issue CD + bonus-CD

After the re-release of debut album Imrama, Primordial’s second full length gets re-released, including bonus material.
A Journey’s End was originally recorded at the end of 1998 and got released through Misanthropy Records. The album went (goes) on in the vein of the debut, bringing a superb and intriguing form of Viking Metal. Being an Irish band, the Celtic approach might be rather evident, yet the band does not sound like, let’s say, Cruachan or Mael Mordha. Primordial have an own sound, injecting the epic hymns with a grim and cold Black Metal atmosphere. The tempo differs from fast to slow, and sometimes the riffs come with a sound comparable to obscure Doom from the old school. The full sound is pretty bombastic and overwhelming, while some epic pieces dwell within the same spheres as the early (Norwegian) Nordic masters (Kampfar, Hades Almighty, Borknagar etc, as well as Bathory!). The band nowadays might sound somewhat different (less blackish), yet the typical sound Primordial stand for was inherent since the very beginning, very clearly.
The bonus-CD brings a full show live registration from a performance in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1999. The sound is pretty bad, yet the performance is ex-cel-lent! Like on the studio recording…

!!!/100

Ivan Tibos.