“A portal to a damned land.”
Winter is approaching, it gets dark by 5 pm now, and humanity is slowly descending into collective madness, it seems. Primal Scourge certainly have been either paying close attention or timed the release of their debut album, End of Eden, perfectly. Doomy death metal could be best enjoyed by a warm fire as you’re sipping on spiked eggnog to cope with seasonal depression or in the middle of the wilderness. Irrespective of whichever setting you find yourself in, End of Eden is as gloom and doom as it gets, aligning with every unescapable hardship we will eventually face. Make no mistake: Primal Scourge do not shy away from exhibiting clean-cut brutality on End of Eden, but it’s how they maintain a strong semblance of technicality that permeates a subzero sonic chill that truly makes this record a representation of predestined ruination. Macabre but not mindless, doom death of this caliber is becoming rather scarce, and the presence of anything left at the conclusion of End of Eden is even more so.
End of Eden will feel overwhelmingly melancholic rather quickly, and that’s in part due to its overt black metal elements. The usual doom works of high distortion, low-tuned instrumentals, and predominantly slow tempo structures are at play here, but it’s the tremolo picking and dissonant riffs that intermittently nudge through that push End of Eden from purgatory down to hell. “Morbid Gestation” and “Necromantic Plague” are odysseys through a frigid chasm, where nothing even remotely illuminating is to be found. Blast beat drumming is also persistent, even when Primal Scourge alternates in pace. And to exacerbate an already dilapidated atmosphere, the acoustic sections of “Visceral Crown” set the pretense for a headfirst dive into End of Eden’s unrelenting despair. If we’re nearing the end of times, Primal Scourge has formulated the musical accompaniment for it.
Rio Mariucci (drums, vocals) and Austin Asmus (guitar, bass, vocals) should be given every withering bouquet of dead flowers that can be found. With a minimalist approach, they’ve cultivated a maximalist product in End of Eden. There’s equal distribution in terms of attention given to each instrumental aspect of this album, with everything front and center but refraining from stealing the darkened spotlight. When Mariucci and Asmus form an auditory union, End of Eden is mostly sympathetic to brutal death metal. Despite that, there are also plenty of moments where Mariucci’s plethoric shifts are juxtaposed by Asmus’ inverted string work. More often than not, while one half of Primal Scourge is sprinting at full speed, the other is methodically pumping the brakes (see “Altars of Eclipse” and “Graveborn” for prime showcases of this). The prowess of End of Eden from a musicianship standpoint is to be commended; this isn’t your run-of-the-mill meathead doom death by any means.
Comparatively, Primal Scourge is what you get when you fuse Blackbraid and Revocation. Melodic sensibilities overlayed with exceptionally technical barbarity. End of Eden separates itself because of its knack for agreeable discordance. It may be sensory overload for some, but true patrons of amalgamated inversion will have plenty to revel in, even if Primal Scourge aim to erase any shred of wishful thinking you had left concerning our preservation as a species. “Isolated Descension”, the lone interlude of End of Eden, will only further sap you of hope for a better tomorrow. It’s within this synth-laden trip through the void where Primal Scourge may, once again, get lost on some, but sustain the attention of many.
If things seem bleak, don’t worry. End of Eden ensures your dimmest day is your brightest versus what follows. Combining the strongest topical facets of several influences, Primal Scourge have rendered the landscape of doom death into an eternally blackened tundra where life itself ceases to exist. A couple of potentially schismatic characteristics notwithstanding, End of Eden is everything you could want out of a debut effort. Let’s just hope the earth is still standing by the time Primal Scourge decide to unleash perennial despondency upon us once again.
8/10
End of Eden has been released as of November 14 via Iron Fortress Records and can be purchased here.