Album Review: Primordial – How It Ends (Metal Blade Records)

Celtic black metal band Primordial return with their tenth full-length release ‘How it Ends’. It is the follow up to 2018’s Exile Amongst the Ruins and it will be released on September 29th, 2023, via Metal Blade Records.

The wonder of Primordial never ceases to amaze, the despair of Primordial never ceases to captivate, and the intensity of Primordial never ceases to delight. For 32 years, they have been oozing beautiful darkness like no other, and How it Ends is a choking continuation of that. Where every single is an epic tome of Celtic influences and black metal anguish.

It’s a wandering and explorative start with the title track, Primordial using only the guitars to spread the gloom around thickly. An erratic drumbeat then signals a shift, the track growing in strength, and then the vocals arrive, and it fully kicks into something truly epic. It is but the first of many, and an early indicator of this album’s impressive power.

It’s also an early indicator that this album is not a lazy Primordial album and they are still more than willing to push the limits of their creativity. Hence the thumping drumming, wild riffing, and commanding vocals of Ploughs to Rust, Swords to Dust. A track that haemorrhages darkness. Whereas We Shall Not Serve delivers a pulsating blast of wickedness that is fast and furious, and Pilgrimage to the World’s End fully captures the sense of being on a long and arduous journey that few will return from, if any at all. It’s almost romantic… almost.

In between those two tracks is one of the shortest tracks by some margin, Traidisiúnta. Being only a little over two-minutes long and completely instrumental. It is a wonderful bridge between tracks, and has a certain level of upbeat melody to it.

The second half of the album begins as strongly as the first with Nothing New Under the Sun and the emphatic epic misery of Primordial. A layered showcase of melody-infused music that ebbs and flows through the mind. Then there’s the more ‘traditional’ rhythms of Call to Cernunnos, where Primordial really capture the feel of Irish folklore and myth. The lord of wild things would be very pleased with this ode. Before the monolith that is All Against All comes along with a dark and sinister vibe, leading to a truly larger-than-life conclusion. It doesn’t get much grander than this, which is saying something as this album is all about grandness.

Most bands following that would struggle and the next track would sound ordinary, but this is Primordial and they know exactly what to do to keep the good vibes going. Delivering slower abject sorrow with Death Holy Death and then a blend of traditional Celtic vigour, heart-wrenching melody, and brash blackened metal with Victory Has 1000 Fathers, Defeat Is an Orphan. Both tracks are pure Primordial brilliance, showing that this band continue to defy any and all expectations.

How it Ends is a triumphant return that will have everyone joyfully wallowing in the beautiful misery it creates.

Primordial – How it Ends Track Listing:

1. How It Ends
2. Ploughs to Rust, Swords to Dust
3. We Shall Not Serve
4. Traidisiúnta
5. Pilgrimage to the World’s End
6. Nothing New Under the Sun
7. Call to Cernunnos
8. All Against All
9. Death Holy Death
10. Victory Has 1000 Fathers, Defeat Is an Orphan

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