Black metal stopped being a postcard of Nordic landscapes a long time ago. Yes, the style may have been born from ice, forests, ancient runes, and isolation, but what defines it is intention, atmosphere, and the honesty of the emotion carved into it. When these elements come together, black metal can speak with different accents, from any latitude, without needing to dress itself up in borrowed clichés.
This is how the debut full length from Tunisian act Primordial Black can be understood. With Dark Matter Manifesto, the band shows that North Africa, little by little, is delivering studio productions of the highest quality. In what is something of a continuation of the 2024 EP Monas Hieroglyphica, the themes previously outlined take on new and surreal contours, exploring emotional numbness, fear, and the slow decay of the mind, conjuring human collapse through riffs that build tension and an oppressive rhythmic drive, loaded with groove and with black metal as its backbone.
Mixed and mastered by Nikola Dušmanić (Ezoterik Studio, Serbia), Dark Matter Manifesto is a well thought out, dense, smartly paced, and muscular record, especially when it comes to the drum performance captured by Selim Bouladi, here on loan from Midnight Pin. At 30 minutes, it feels like the right length for today’s standards, and it also includes other high calibre contributions such as Sakis Tolis of Greece’s Rotting Christ on “Sowing Discord”, delivering an authoritative, weighty performance on a track that already carries an ancient, almost oracular aura, working like a voice called in to seal the ritual. Artist Maxime Taccardi also refuses to appear as a conventional guest, giving “Din of Thy Celestial Birds”, the closing track, into an experience that gives shape and symbolism to a varied palette of sounds and Lovecraftian themes, as well as literature and philosophy.
The language of black metal is universal, with a cosmic meaning, and Dark Matter Manifesto is skilled at avoiding the trap of the genre’s most obvious reference points, giving form to emotions that rise from the depths of our minds but belong to a certain collective subconscious.
With this record, Primordial Black prove that making extreme music in the Maghreb does not have to be synonymous with limited resources and infrastructure. Even through hostility and misunderstanding, the persistence can be heard and felt, etched into a record that sounds like what is expected from a final product. And more importantly, it refuses to lower its voice into something more convenient, demanding to be heard on the same terms as a landmark black metal record, because that is exactly what it is.
Watch the lyric video for Primordial Black’s “Sowing Discord” (feat. Sakis Tolis of Rotting Christ) below.
