To the Nameless Dead takes the maturity of The Gathering Wilderness and combines it with the creatvity and urgency of Journeys End and Spirit the Earth Aflame. The end result... is beyond words how good it is.
There is a deep deep sorrow that is found throughout every note of this album. There is an unbridled rage found in every passage. There is an absolute controlled and focused will to each of these tracks.
Lets break down just one of the songs and see how it harnesses the metal genre to perfection. Gallows Hymn is the second song on the album and it begins with what will become the main melody of the song. It grows and swells until the entire band comes in forcefully with the same series of notes. This not only puts the listener on notice that this is going to be a tour de force of a song but it shows how well the band works together. Finally A.A. Nemtheanga's vocals come in.
I'm not going to praise the vocalist as being one of the best of all time. He is an aquired taste at best, and a rather poor vocalist from a technical stand point at worst. Where he does excel though is his emotional delivery. The rage, the sorrow, the melancholy, the desire for revenge, the absolute agony... all of this is channeled through his voice... flawed as it is. But that's what makes it perfect for Primordial. This is essentially a folk metal album played with guitars, bass, drums, and vocals.
Primordial does not aim to be perfect in their execution... in fact the way its played here is better than if this was played with the precision of a tech death band. It adds to the authenticity of each song and in doing so adds to the validity of the record. This is not simply a metal album... this is a testament to what not only the metal genre is capable of but what genuine music sounds like a whole.
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