Primigenium
Art of War
[Full Moon]
The record up for review here is Primigenium's debut full-length "Art Of
War," which consists of 9 tracks with a running time of
approximately 41:51. Primigenium is a two-man band from Spain, and to this
date have released a demo (1994's "As Eternal as the Night")
and a MCD re-release of the demo plus some bonus tracks. Anyway, that's
enough of the history... let's get on with the review.
I had heard quite a bit of good things about this band, and I was very interested in checking out this disc. Upon listening to this CD, it's obvious that Primigenium care nothing about making good first impressions. The disc opens up with a completely laughable midi-sounding intro that is almost too incredibly horrible for words. It's as if they took the music from a Nintendo game. After this initial embarrassment, Primigenium launches into a rather solid disc of what could be called "average Nordic-styled black metal." What you'll find here is a band that draws a lot of influences from the music of Immortal; they tend to primarily incorporate the speed from the newer Immortal material with the slower, catchy parts from Immortal's debut disc. The material is mostly fast-paced with a few slower breaks here and there (a notable exception is the "Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism" worshipping track "Pact of Solitude," which is completely mid paced, and quite frankly, one of Primigenium's better songs). Overall, it's a fairly decent disc with good riffing, although a couple of filler/stupid-sounding riffs sneak in here and there along with a few horrible synth intros that are interspersed throughout the disc. The production is also somewhat raw and quirky; the guitars have a high-end "buzz saw" sound to them and the drums come off sounding like a pad set at times.
To be honest, I really didn't care for this CD at first; it was just far too average to really make a strong impression. However, it has steadily grown on me and I find myself actually listening to it more often than I thought I would. The bottom line is this- if you have extra cash, you might want to pick up "Art of War," even though you're not really missing anything important if you don't.
One final note- the song titles are out of order on the back of the case and on the disc itself. For the correct order, look in the inside of the booklet.
© 1997 baalberith
I had heard quite a bit of good things about this band, and I was very interested in checking out this disc. Upon listening to this CD, it's obvious that Primigenium care nothing about making good first impressions. The disc opens up with a completely laughable midi-sounding intro that is almost too incredibly horrible for words. It's as if they took the music from a Nintendo game. After this initial embarrassment, Primigenium launches into a rather solid disc of what could be called "average Nordic-styled black metal." What you'll find here is a band that draws a lot of influences from the music of Immortal; they tend to primarily incorporate the speed from the newer Immortal material with the slower, catchy parts from Immortal's debut disc. The material is mostly fast-paced with a few slower breaks here and there (a notable exception is the "Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism" worshipping track "Pact of Solitude," which is completely mid paced, and quite frankly, one of Primigenium's better songs). Overall, it's a fairly decent disc with good riffing, although a couple of filler/stupid-sounding riffs sneak in here and there along with a few horrible synth intros that are interspersed throughout the disc. The production is also somewhat raw and quirky; the guitars have a high-end "buzz saw" sound to them and the drums come off sounding like a pad set at times.
To be honest, I really didn't care for this CD at first; it was just far too average to really make a strong impression. However, it has steadily grown on me and I find myself actually listening to it more often than I thought I would. The bottom line is this- if you have extra cash, you might want to pick up "Art of War," even though you're not really missing anything important if you don't.
One final note- the song titles are out of order on the back of the case and on the disc itself. For the correct order, look in the inside of the booklet.
© 1997 baalberith