EP Review: Immaterium – The Primal Evil (Self Released)

Immaterium is a symphonic/progressive metal project founded by Ma’ar Gareth. Ma’ar is a self-taught songwriter, composer of the orchestral, synth and keyboard parts and the lyrics author. Her main inspirations are the aggressive guitars of Tesseract and Spiritbox, epic orchestrations of Wintersun and powerful vocals of Wind Rose and Rhapsody of Fire.

The debut EP, The Primal Evil will be released on December 14th, 2021.

Chunky and aggressive sounding riffs blended with progressive oddities, off-kilter atmosphere, light orchestrations and grand, epic sounding vocals. Each track sounds humongous, that much is clear and the level of detail is astounding. This is not a ‘one and done’ kind of listen, it needs time to permeate the senses, especially as it does have elements that challenge.

It’s got a ton of merit, especially as each track feels like a story being told. Vargöld, when all is dust takes a methodical approach but proves that these depths go really deep. Hymn of the Warmaster has a lot more orchestral grandiosity about it and almost takes us into power metal territory. The influence of the likes of Rhapsody of Fire is clearer here.

Finally, it’s The Curse of Enlightenment which acts to connect the two previous tracks. Sharing the sharper and harsher riff style of the first track but also putting orchestration in a more prominent but carefully used place.

It’s a good EP. There’s room for growth and a few ideas that could be tweaked and adapting to make the flow feel better. However, as a showcase of what Immaterium is capable of, it’s impressive.

Immaterium – The Primal Evil Full Track Listing:

1. The Phoenix Falls
2. Vargöld, when all is dust
3. Hymn of The Warmaster
4. The Curse of Enlightenment

Links

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