Nothing to fear: these guys ain't breaking any time soon!
Unbreakable --- Primal Fear --- 2012 (Frontiers)
With all the power metal bands emerging out of Germany in recent years, it's nice to listen to a proper heavy metal band like Primal Fear, who do what they do very well and with consummate ease. I've listened to most of their output over the last year or two and they've consistently impressed me, so I hold this album, their latest, to quite high standards, which I'm sure they'll reach. It's their ninth in a career spanning almost fourteen years now, and just their second since longtime guitarist Stefan Leibing left to spend more time with his family, and was replaced by Magnus Karlsson.
It opens with a short, orchestral-style instrumental, the title track in fact, but only part one (part two will come later), and there's more of the progressive metal about this opener than heavy metal, with some fine keyboard work from Karlsson and rolling, cinematic drums as well as choral vocals, but when "Strike" kicks in like a lumphammer to the head everything takes off on twin guitars and trundling drums, with the well-known and recognised powerful vocals of band founder Ralf Scheepers bellowing out the lyric. The basic melody seems to borrow a little from Maiden's "Two minutes to midnight", and it rockets along with bucketloads of energy and purpose. Great guitar solo as you'd expect of course, very melodic, almost Malmsteenesque in places, then we're into "Give 'em Hell", which of course is a soft ballad --- not. More powerful screaming guitars and thundering drums, with Scheepers' voice a little rawer on a Dio-style track which will no doubt have the iron-studded leather fists punching the air in agreement when this is played live.
Big military style drumroll to start off "Bad guys wear black", then it heads into a boogie metal groove which again is fairly reminscent of Maiden, thumping along nicely and with a very infectious melody. Metalheads will be happy to hear the joyously shouted lyric
Bang your head/ Until you reach the end/ Bang your head and don't look back!" After that things ramp up considerably for the pounding, galloping fretfest that is "And there was silence", which seems to envisage World War Three, driven on the furious drumming of Randy Black. There is of course also blistering guitar work from Karlsson and second axeman Alex Beyrodt. A lot of Primal Fear's material centres around nuclear war and the fear of it, and this certainly has an apocalyptic feel to it. Slower and more of a grinder is "Metal nation", which for some reason reminds me of some of Gary Moore's music, particularly "End of the world" and "Nuclear attack". It has a great hook and some powerful guitars, with Scheepers on top form.
Primal Fear have never been a band who are big on experimentation or I guess what you'd call progression. They know what they're good at, and they stick to that, playing to their strengths, so you usually know what you're going to get with one of their albums. This is no exception, and while some people might call that predictable I prefer to see it as reliable. Some fine basswork from Mat Sinner and another great guitar solo and we're into the longest track on the album by some way. Opening on a soft acoustic guitar from Beyrodt, backed up and pretty much blown away then by electric from Karlsson, "Where angels die" is an eight-minute metal monster, with a relatively soft opening vocal from Ralf, growled and again I have to say in places similar to Dickinson and a very catchy chorus. Some really nice use of atmospheric keyboards here, again courtesy of Magnus Karlsson.
Off rockin' and rollin' again with "Unbreakable (Part 2)", which I must say I see bearing no resemblance to the instrumental that opened the album, but it's a good headbanger, as is "Marching again". That haunting, dramatic keyboard is back, with a sudden explosion of growling screeching guitars taking us into the second minute, then the somewhat sedate opening pace is kicked right up the arse and everything fires off like bombs going off and we're heads-down, take-no-prisoners as the song pounds along at breakneck speed. A band Primal Fear closely mirror is Axxis, also another favourite of mine, with close-harmony vocals not that often seen in metal, and killer guitar attacks. Somehow their music always seems that little bit more commercial than other metal bands I could mention. They also do ballads, which I know a lot of metal bands do, but Primal Fear do them very well indeed.
Case in point is "Born again", which has some powerful dramatic backing vocals and almost strings-like keyboard passages, very emotional and almost Steinman-worthy in its production. Karlsson knows just when to break in and add the fire of his guitarwork to the music, and when to hold back and allow his keys to paint the soundscape. Like quite a lot of the band's material, this song concentrates on the possibility of life after death, as Ralf cries
"Is there a god?/ Will we be born again?/ Will I ever see your smile again?" Contender for standout on the album, certainly. Lovely lonely little chiming guitar outro, then all sentiment is forgotten and set aside as we power into "Blaze of glory" on the back of some pretty angry guitar from Karlsson and Beyrodt, a thumping drumbeat from Randy Black and a killer bass line from Mat Sinner.
The final track, "Conviction" is, to be fair, nothing terribly great, nothing to write home about, and I would have preferred to have closed on either of the last two tracks, or even on the full title track, which would have bookended the album well. As it is, "Conviction" is not a bad track at all, but compared to what has preceded it it sort of comes across to me as something of an afterthought, like a track tacked on at the last minute. I'm sure it wasn't, but that's how it seems to me. Not the worst closer I've ever heard by a long shot, but definitely not among the best.
TRACKLISTING
1. Unbreakable (Part 1)
2. Strike
3. Give 'em Hell
4. Bad guys wear black
5. And there was silence
6. Metal nation
7. Where angels die
8. Unbreakable (Part 2)
9. Marching again
10. Born again
11. Blaze of glory
12. Conviction
Look, I'm not going to pretend this album is going to change your life. It's not even likely to make you a fan of Primal Fear, if you're not already one. But it delivers what you expect: fast, loud, heavy metal with a lot of melody and some pretty deep lyrics. The guys have been going for almost fourteen years now and they've obviously discovered a formula that works, so why change it now? May not be the most progressive of albums, but hey, like they say, it does what it says on the tin.