“With heavy riffs that accelerated at times and a pulsating, dissonant drum sound, Primordial Black created unorthodox sonic passages that could even be considered experimental at times.”
A few months ago, I was invited to explore bands from Africa, a vast and fascinating continent about which I’m still relatively ignorant in terms of metal and music in general. However, it was clear that such a landmass must have and nurture extreme music from different ethnomusical perspectives. On this occasion, I had the opportunity to listen to and review a band from Tunisia called Primordial Black, a name that immediately made me think they were a black metal band or that they would have a sound similar to that of their compatriots Znous, but I was quite far from the truth.
Although I was partially correct, when I decided to investigate the band further on my favorite music exploration site, Metal Archives, I saw that it was labeled as an amalgamation of heavy, groove, and black metal, with groove being the most prominent component in the band’s description. My reaction was somewhat dissonant and confused, as I didn’t quite know what to expect from such a peculiar combination of styles. I quickly got to work and settled in to listen to the recommended debut EP, Monas Hieroglyphica, released in 2024 through the French record label M & O Music.
The first thing that caught my attention was an almost immediate association in my mind between this band and Tom Warrior’s project, Triptykon. The vocals were the element that most reminded me of that group. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect in terms of vocal delivery, and what I found were screams with an almost hardcore edge at times, which, in my case, were an acquired taste, since the first few times I listened to the EP, they didn’t quite convince me.
Primordial Black’s music was much more abstract than I expected, since I used the labels assigned to them on Metal Archives as a reference. Sometimes it’s quite difficult to define a band’s music with specific words and concepts, so often you have to use your own judgment and find nuances in the music as you listen. Here, I found an amalgamation of elements from various extreme metal styles, like a kind of musical chimera blending black metal, doom, thrash, and even death metal at times, with rather chaotic and unintuitive structures that kept me focused throughout this EP. With heavy riffs that accelerated at times and a pulsating, dissonant drum sound, Primordial Black created unorthodox sonic passages that could even be considered experimental at times. The bass had a prominent presence, adding groove to all the songs as they developed and oscillated between mid-tempo and more accelerated sections. The production values seemed quite competent to me, especially the drum sound, which was undoubtedly the most prominent element and what I personally enjoyed most about the whole.
Despite not finding anything innovative or anything that exponentially sparked my interest, I greatly appreciate and admire the enthusiasm of musicians who make the effort to compose and release music, enriching the global metal scene. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, I’ll come across this band and their more recent recordings again, eager to see how they’ve evolved since the release of this EP.
