[Cover photo credit to Fergal Flannery]
Dublin, Ireland-based Pagan Metal band Primordial will release their tenth full-length album, How It Ends, on September 29th, 2023 via Metal Blade Records.
Having lasted thirty-two years, the Irish band are following-up 2018’s Exile Amongst The Ruins, with their seminal blend of Celtic and Black Metal, but this time with “an extra added urgency, and staring down the apocalypse.” In advance of the record’s release, the band has revealed the first single and album closer, “Victory Has 1000 Fathers, Defeat Is An Orphan,“ and its accompanying video.
Vocalist A. A. Nemtheanga says:
The title is a question – is this how it ends? How it all goes down: culture, language, history, society – humanity – who knows? Regardless of who you are or were, you get one chance at all of this, and it’s asking is this the end of your town, state, nation? Myths, traditions, relationships, and I suppose it asks the question, who reacts, who rebels – how does it end now for them?
Working alongside founding members Pól MacAmlaigh (bass) and Ciáran MacUilliam (guitar) and longtime drummer Simon O’Laoghaire, the band started writing in earnest in the Fall of 2022.
Primordial never plans out a record beforehand, “letting them come together naturally,” though Nemtheanga knew he wanted something with “a bigger, more open sound, and something more aggressive.”
They add:
‘How It Ends’ is a very angry, defiant, visceral, and rebellious album, and as we worked it all began to take more shape and form itself. It may be the note we go out on but it will be a note of resistance, in musical terms. I think it’s also more metal! And more epic!
Drawing lyrical influence both from “modern and historical ideas,” Nemtheanga says the album focuses on the idea of “liberty,”, continuing “It’s not hard to see why the album is inspired by this considering where we are right now in the world.”
PRIMORDIAL w/ Paradise Lost, Omnium Gatherum, Harakiri For The Sky:
9/28/2023 Substage – Karlsruhe, DE
9/29/2023 Komplex – Zurich, CZ
9/30/2023 Kaminwerk – Memmingen, DE
10/01/2023 Schlachthof – Wiesbaden, DE
10/02/2023 Löwensaal – Nuremberg,DE
10/04/2023 Trix – Antwerp, BE
10/05/2023 Garage – Saarbrücken, DE
10/06/2023 MeetFactory – Prague, CZ
10/07/2023 Vienna Metal Meeting – Vienna, AT
10/08/2023 Barba Negra – Budapest, HU
10/10/2023 A2 – Wroclaw, PL
10/11/2023 Capitol – Hanover, DE
10/12/2023 Kronensaal – Hamburg, DE
10/13/2023 Hellraiser – Leipzig, DE
10/14/2023 Turbinenhalle 2 – Oberhausen, DE
10/15/2023 Roanda – Utrecht, NL
