Primordial – Redemption At The Puritan’s Hand

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Metal Blade Records
Produced by Chris Fielding

The trouble with both black and folk metal is that both genres typically feel detached from reality. Folk metal dwells too much on ancient culture, history and myth, rarely dealing with matters of the current day. Likewise, typical black metal often focuses too commonly on extreme religious or even political perspectives that can’t be related to. Obviously this type of music is often taken for what it is, and enjoyed for its escapist or controversial appeal, but sometimes it’s better to find something a little more real.

Primordial themselves often dwell on historical matters as well, but what separates them is that their lyrics and themes still feel relevant to the present day. Redemption At The Puritan’s Hand is an album that focuses on death and how humanity deals with it, a subject that is more or less timeless. As can be understood from a band like Primordial, much of its consideration is upon that of religion and its role in how humanity handles death. Unlike bands of the tired satanic black metal genre however, Primordial make no judgments or harp on from their corner. They simply present their material as it is.

Fans of the band’s previous two albums, The Gathering Wilderness and To The Nameless Dead, will certainly be able to make comparisons between these two albums and their latest. Primordial have long since evolved from their black metal roots, showing no influence from their more popular peers from Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe. Their music has evolved and flourished in their own corner of the continent. Despite the band’s links to folk metal festivals such as the traveling Paganfests and Heidenfests, they most certainly aren’t folk. There certainly is a Celtic flavour in some of their melodies, and especially in their rhythms, but otherwise they have little similarities with the folk wave. Rather this is a mature, intelligent and soulful take on black metal, free of the typical tropes connected to the genre.

Such an intelligent and unusual approach might invoke the term ‘progressive’, but that perhaps puts the band in a light that does not suit them. Progressive more often than not means highly technical and complicated, even pretensious. Primordial’s songs, whilst long, meaningful and developed, are not burdened by the type of guitar wizardry one associated with progressive. Their music is relatively simple, making it surprisingly accessible yet still retaining a high artistic sincerity. The stand out technically though might be Simon O’Laoghaire’s drumming – imaginative, creative, making good use of the band’s Celtic rhythms. The fact that the band managed to sober him up after nearly being thrown out of the band, is something to be appreciative for.

Redemption At The Puritan’s Hand is mostly about emotions, though. Whilst Primordial mostly dwell in the dark here – unsurprising given its subject matter – it isn’t all doom. Death isn’t only met with fear, there’s also introspection, and bravely staring death in the face. The words and tone of Nemtheanga’s vocal delivery as such are far from just bleakness; he also can project a charismatic, soaring and optimistic aura on songs such as Bloodied Yet Unbowed, and near the end of No Grave Deep Enough. His vocals are far from black – not that he isn’t capable of the typical black metal sneer, used well throughout the album – but his main trademark delivery is larger than that, a loud, booming and uplifting voice that propels the band’s music way beyond its genre.

Primordial are a rare entity in metal, and Redemption At The Puritan’s Hand continues the legacy the band have made for themselves in the last few years. It is an album that is interesting and unique enough to hold a more universal appeal amongst fans of metal. Certainly those who have been waiting eagerly for the album after 2007′s triumphant To The Nameless Dead shall not be disappointed.

“ an intelligent and unusual approach ”

Tracklist: No Grave Deep Enough / Lain With The Wolf / Bloodied Yet Unbowed / God’s Old Snake / The Mouth of Judas / The Black Hundred / The Puritan’s Hand / Death of The Gods

Written by James Donovan
More: 2011, Albums, Black Metal, Primordial