Review Summary: Primal Fear - New Religion
It is the variety that makes this album so good.
They made a mix of power metal with some of good old school metal with a lot of Judas Priest connections together with some gothic influences and even some progressive rock as w
Primal Fear – New Religion
Is it new? No
Is it good: Yes!
So what is it that this makes it a good album?
Because it is a variety of metal styles that makes this worthwhile listening to.
They made a mix of Power metal with some of good old school metal with a lot of Judas Priest connections together with some gothic influences and even some progressive rock as well.
This is not too surprising when looking at the ingredients here:
Ralf Scheepers sings and sound like he’s Rob Halford himself.
There is a guest appearance by Magnus Karlsson the man behind the Allen/Lande albums and Simone Simons from Epica sings a nice duet with Ralph.
1 Sign of Fear (4:47) could easily come from Halford’s Crucible album.
2 Face The Emptiness (4:36) is a fine Power Metal song with the typical double bass drums and a fine melody in the Chorus.
3 Every time it Rains (3:53) here’s the song with the Gothic influences and not only because it is a nice duet with Simone Simons from Epica.
4 New Religion (4:04) start off like a song from Judas Priest’s Defenders of the Faith but soon turns into a fine Power Metal Song.
Then comes the proggy part with 3 piece suite Fighting the Darkness a 8:45 min opus.
5 Fighting the Darkness (3:37) a nice Power Metal song with proggy influences.
6 The Darkness (3:51) a good instrumental with some typical symphonic rock and classical themes.
7 Reprise (1:16) is a short repeat from the Fighting the Darkness chorus that end in a nice piano melody.
8 Blood on Your Hands (4:41) has a lame chorus and is a bit of cliché (almost cheesy) metal song.
9 The Curse of Sharon reminds me a bit of Iron Maiden like the typical Maiden chorus and the quiet intermezzo.
10 Too Much Time (5:14) sounds a lot like Rapid Fire from Priest’s British Steel and has some killer solos in it as well.
11 Psycho (3:55) starts of like Grinder again from Judas Priest’s British Steel but during the chorus it turns into a hysterical metal song like Judas Priest on the Painkiller album the song also contains a short, moody spoken intermezzo.
12 World on Fire (3:54) Sound a lot like Eat Me Alive from Priest’s Defenders of the Faith and even has some typical Priest Lyrics as well but with a typical power metal chorus and some killer solos here again.
13 The Man (That I Don’t Know) (6:11)
After a bombastic intro this song the turns into a nice ballad with acoustic guitar picking and a BIG chorus and lots of orchestration and drama.
Don’t let the Priest connections scare you off, because it never becomes cheesy and the song writing is of a very high standard and everything is done with the greatest perfection and a real fine production.
The big plus on this album is the variety, because al these different styles makes it a much more interesting listening session than if we got a complete gothic or power metal album. I do like these gothic bands but to me they all sound the same and after 3 songs I’m lost and it could easily be the first or last song of the album and the same goes for power metal where they all tend to have these double bass drums on full speed on every song, so the effect of having power by a double bass drum quickly fades. If you want some powerful drumming I would recommend Testament’s The Gathering with Dave Lombardo from Slayer.
A few months later I must say this album waers off pretty quick after the first couple of spins everything sounds impersive. But the fact that we have heard it all before somewhere else becomes anoying so I now have downgraded this album from 4 to 3!
For more info see: www.primalfear.de
