Primordial

[Jward]

I just listened to End of All Times (Martyrs Fire) on YouTube and it prompted me to grab The Gathering Wilderness off the shelf. I suspect it will be on rotation in the car for the foreseeable.

I have The Gathering Wilderness on now
Cracking album

Everyone is on fire on it

The overall mix/sound suits them very well

[Nazgûl]

First Primordial album I bought and first time ever hearing the band. Bought it at Graspop festival of all places when I was about 17 and fired it on the Walkman I had brought with me for tunes, while hanging around the campsite the next morning. It'll always hold a special spot for me in their discography.

I've heard complaints about the murky production on here and MI, but I think the whole package is spot on from production to artwork to the songs.

Some bollix has my CD version, after I'd lent it and forgotten to whom. Going to throw it on Spotify soon. This post has also brought me to question how the fuck I managed to bring CDs with me to that festival, and why I hadn't gotten an iPod by then in 2004. 

[Nazgûl]

Have TGW on now.

'Cities Carved In Stone' might be the most restrained/downtempo song they've ever written. Not really anything like it on any album until the last one where they had a more mellow sounding track or two (Stolen Years).

[Eoin McLove]

Listening to TGW on repeat the last couple of days myself. Works well this time of year for me.

[Melmoth]

Sale on Primordial merch on the Kings Road webstore until tomorrow evening:

https://eu.kingsroadmerch.com/metal-blade/search/index.php?search=primordial

[Nazgûl]

https://youtu.be/bcSWHu9X00M

I wasn't at this gig unfortunately. I'm sure a few on here were. Probably the best I've ever heard the band perform to be honest, particularly the vocal performance. The Coffin Ships and a couple more songs from this gig are also up on YT and it's the same consistency throughout. Absolutely deadly!

[Eoin McLove]

I have A Journey's End on at the moment and it's not one I reach for very often when in a Primordial mood. I don't know why I don't give it more time as it is a fantastic album. They arguably peaked with their early embryonic style on the next album,  Spirit the Earth Aflame, but this album is so gloomy and experimental that it really captures my imagination whenever I do choose to listen to it. The old musty photographs of the trees and the workmen walking through the fields captures the atmosphere of the music quite well, too. I love the mix of styles used across the album, and yet despite the difference between the epicness and savagery of the likes of Bitter Harvest, the acoustic Dark Song, the drone of Solitary Mourner (an unusual choice for the time, perhaps?), the seemingly omnipresent acoustic guitar strumming behind the electric, the album is a coherent whole. There is so much to get lost in.

It is the sound of a band out on their own, haunting the outer periphery of black metal, pagan folk metal and doom. A masterpiece? Maybe baby.

[Blizzard Beast]

Nice version of Journeys end at this gig.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qf-vARq8Vc

[Circlepit]

It's excellent.  It's the sound of a band knowing they are on to something but yet to fully have the musical vocabulary to really express it. The gathering wilderness.... Here they fully know who they are and what they want to say and how to say it.
After listening to all AA's podcasts I wonder to the rest of the band ever wish he would whisht???!!!

[Eoin McLove]

Imrama on now. Flanger abuse till death!

[open face surgery]

Had A Journey's End on lately as well. A great album that I too need to go to more often.

[Eoin McLove]

Such a gloomy bastard of an album. I'm like a broken record but I'd love to hear them write an album with a darker edge to it again, despite really enjoying the generally more carefree style of the last one. The anthems are cool in their own right,  no doubt, but I find myself more drawn to their more difficult or obscure sounding albums.

[04325613]

I played Journeys End to bits back in the day, would still consider it my favourite but it'd be Spirit or TGW I'd reach for nowadays.
It was great to finally see them play the Dark Song of Éireann live back in 2010(? not sure when it was exactly)

[lifeeternal]

Such a gloomy bastard of an album. I'm like a broken record but I'd love to hear them write an album with a darker edge to it again, despite really enjoying the generally more carefree style of the last one. The anthems are cool in their own right,  no doubt, but I find myself more drawn to their more difficult or obscure sounding albums.

Difficult and obscure doesn't pay unfortunately, not that Primordial are rolling in it by any means. I'd rather a return to the early stuff as well, that said I love the later stuff, except stolen years which is an abomination.

[Cailleach]

Funny. I've become quite fond of that track