Primordial - To The Nameless Dead

\r\nIf the last record of Primordial "The Gathering Wilderness" seemed profoundly dark and downhearted, their next effort "To The Nameless Dead" is also dark but more wrathful, mournful and epic and pompous at the same time with a feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will to their sound. "To The Nameless Dead" is an epic combination of Celtic, pagan, folk and black metal all in really small doses with strong and intensive riffs, a beautiful wall of heavyset guitars and a keen atmosphere built up by the different layers of traditional Celtic/folk metal with the grandness of pagan metal and black metal‘s naked landscapes. The album begins with three grandiose tracks, the opener "Empire Falls", a driving, riff-based song with a tremendous atmosphere and with Nemtheanga demonstrating right from the very beginning his great, expressive and forceful voice. The next track "Gallows Hymn" is with one word, GRAND. Beginning with a melancholic mood, quickly it turns into this excited and highly emotional eruption to the band’s pagan faith, a wonderful and astonishing piece of work that personally gives me the goose bumps each time I hear it. "As Rome Burns" that follows is an epic song that lasts about 9 minutes with a variety of sounds fusing subtle celtic influences and metal ferocity with an outstanding percussion performance. The next song "Failures Burden" gives you for the first time the opportunity to breathe freely after the continual blizzard of the first three tracks verging on from low tempo moments to an increased pace and vice versa. "Heathen Tribes" carries on in full view of its folk founding with a brief acoustic interlude and a celtic traditional rhythm melting gradually with electric guitar riffs. After the "The Rising Tide"’s brief introduction then it’s time for the first song in this album that gives away openly the black metal roots of the band. Titled "Traitor’s Gate" it starts as a feral black metal assault with double bass drumming and a grim riffing savory that occasionally rests underneath the dark shadow of Primordial’s melancholic melody and vigorous emotion only to unleash a new violent assault all over again. And the album closes with the track "No Nation on this Earth" starting with a tremendous epic feeling, a truly amazing song with Nemtheanga impressing this time with his initial harsh black metal vocals that accompany perfectly the following clean, dramatic parts of his singing. Overall, this album has nothing weak or mediocre about it. So strong and emotional, so profound and varied, full of national pride and memory, "To The Nameless Dead" manages to achieve in the end something really important. After "The Gathering Wilderness" and it’s highly acclaim it was a really hard task for the band to compete it but Primordial not only stood up well on it, they simply overtook it. \r\n