Apocalypse

Heading into Apocalypse is a potentially interesting proposition because it does seem to change things up a bit compared to the last few Primal Fear albums. “New Rise” comes out swinging with a more melodious riff than the standard Primal Fear fare (or what has been such since the 2010s) before pumping out a big chorus with fuckin’ choirs and shit. Before, it sort of seemed like – outside of the token epic songs – they had the riffs first and the melodies later. They compensated that by making them sound cool as shit, by playing them with a lot of heart and grit. But here, it seems like they went the other way around, sort of having a basic idea of how the song’s going to go and playing something that sounds like that. Like, perhaps every song here is going to be a pocket-sized “We Walk Without Fear”, and the token epic would blow that song away. Yeah, “The Ritual” does seem to be more standard Primal Fear fare, but even this has subtle nods towards the more overly melodic stylings of “New Rise”. Besides, it still has that penchant for making the simplest cuts sound like the coolest shit ever, which keeps things entertaining at any rate. But then we move onto “King of Madness” – maybe it doesn’t seem as big as “New Rise”, but Primal Fear still go more for high-rise rhythms here, rather than the simpler stuff that they’d done earlier in the 2010s. Overall, it actually sounds like quite a rousing album. Perhaps the return of original guitarist, Tom Naumann, lit a fire under their ass this time to get something together that might’ve been more in line with the fantastic Devil’s Ground but even better, and people would’ve accepted it immediately with open arms this time.

Then the rest of the album happens, and it’s kinda fuckin’ boring. Mainly because they have the same issue that the latter half of Rulebreaker did. When simple stuff sounds badass, it’s a mighty call to arms. When it doesn’t, it sounds rather trite and disposable. The sort of material that would’ve been ignored or at least given half-hearted praise in the 80s, nevermind 2018 when the NWOTHM scene has found itself ten thousand strong. So when I’m listening to a track like “Hail to the Fear” or “Hounds of Justice”, it sounds like they got the skeleton of a cool heavy metal track set up, but without that polish and refinement their best songs have, the overall vibe goes from a rousing “FUCK YEAH” to a tepid “sure why not”. It’s as if these mediocre mid-paced stompers and vague speed metal pieces were produced on autopilot, having familiar riffs that go to roughly the same places, but without the care and attention to create anything all that worthwhile. I’d love to at least say the ballad is one of the most interesting songs, but “Supernova” lacks that emotional impact and smooth interplay between the music and Scheepers’ vocals that “The Sky is Burning”. Damn, even the overly sappy and unfitting for Scheepers’ vocal stylings of “Born From a Broken Heart” starts to sound like a hood classic next to this bland, tepid ballad. The fact that this happens right at the fifth track – Rulebreaker at least had the courtesy to do that seven tracks in, plus it still had a good track amidst its second half, plus it’s after that album’s big epic – definitely makes Apocalypse one of those albums that blows its load way too early. What could’ve been a truly special album becomes a lame duck, barring a few songs.

Ahh, but certainly – certainly – it’s all worth it for the big epic on the album, right? Right? Well, on the surface, “Eye of the Storm” does have a lot of what made the likes of “One Night in December” and “We Walk Without Fear” work as it’s got a similar scale and sense of progression, yet it also has the more melodious qualities present in “New Rise” and “King of Madness”. In a sense, the song is at least more interesting than much of the preceding material. Yet at the same time, it’s honestly kind of underwhelming when compared to… well, what I’ve compared it to here. It’s not as epic as the big songs from the last couple of albums, and it doesn’t have as much bite as the two good songs off this album. I’d love to go on about it some more, but all I got is that it’s a decent song that has the right ideas but hardly gets off the ground. Though I do wish the album ended on this note and not the disposable “Cannonball” whose impact is more like that of a paper football.

Firepower might’ve been more what you’d expect from a legacy band rather than a genuinely good album on its own terms, but this is one time Judas Priest positively dabbed on Primal Fear. A few good songs and a decent epic do at least keep Apocalypse above water, but only barely.

Even though I regret not having kept tabs on Primal Fear between 2006 and 2014, I regret returning to them during their current period even more. Maybe it's my naivety, but they seem to have reached a slightly stagnant era in their career. I say 'slightly' because new effort Apocalypse is a significant step up from 2016's bland Rulebreaker. Generic title notwithstanding, this album sees Scheepers and co. injecting a much-needed dose of energy into their Priest-worshipping brand of speed/power metal. Don't expect it to break any more rules than the previous record though.

Primal Fear make the totally correct decision to open this LP with a grandiose introductory title-track before launching into the blazing "New Rise" - a statement of renewal if there ever was one. Utterly blazing, with a stellar chorus and fiery double-kick attack, this is precisely what the Germans required to convince us they're still relevant. After this...the album never reaches that level of energy again. Now, whilst I am a sucker for stomping mid-paced riffage (and, trust me, this album has plenty!) - a little more variety in the tempo department wouldn't go amiss. This is exactly the problem I had with Rulebreaker.

Thankfully, the tracks which all lag in tempo at least contain memorable riffs, catchy choruses and an overall chunky heft, aided by the Sneap-esque production quality. The guitar tone is indeed heavy and delightfully resembles a buzzsaw in action, as displayed on the riff-centric single "The Ritual". Speaking of riffs, the main riff to track 8, "Hounds Of Justice", is an absolute hammer and one of my favourite riffs of 2018. Sometimes they make the mid-paced, fist-pumping anthems work in their favour but after 6 or 7 songs-worth, any listener would long for a change. This does arrive in the form of the more compound-time oriented "The Beast" (complete with excellent gang shouts) and what was clearly meant to be this album's centrepiece.

I was looking forward to hearing "Eye Of The Storm", the traditional 8-minute epic, hoping it would achieve the same effect as 2016's incredible "We Walk Without Fear". Unfortunately, it lags in vibrancy and creativity, despite some cool orchestral work in the middle. Thankfully, "Cannonball" - the album's closer - is on hand to piledrive the listener into submission with some belting heaviness. Overall, "Apocalypse" is a pleasing listen and a better direction for the German veterans - worth it for the cracking opening and some chugtastic riffing afterwards. However, it will hardly smash boundaries, become a classic or - dare I say it - break rules. Incredible artwork though.

At first glance Apocalypse seems like a fairly dull affair, playing it safe at most every turn. Then I remember that’s how most every Primal Fear album has played out in the past decade or so. The fresh off the presses Apocalypse comes two years after 2016’s Rulebreaker (which definitely played by most of the rules), and for the diehard fans, yay! It’s another Primal Fear album. For everyone else, it’s a Primal Fear album. It’s never bad, never anything short of energetic, high flying power metal, but also, it’s never anything truly outstanding or interesting.

Sadly so, when all the members are such deadly musicians in their fields; Mat Sinner blows away regularly in his plenty of other venues, Magnus Karlsson decidedly does better in a melodic hard rock type of style rather than the fleshed out power metal riffage found here, and main man Ralf Scheepers, though his voice has aged well and he seems to sound better with every passing album, made a way bigger impact on another album dealing with the end of times in this year’s A Voice Unheard by Tomorrow’s Outlook.

There are still a few potent spots to shine a little light on, strewn like little sprinkles during the length of the album. The opening is stronger than any of the last few Primal Fear albums, pulling all the levers in opener 'New Rise' and fleshing things out further in massive 'The Ritual', both showcasing some of the heaviest and strongest riffs the three guitarists have put together, well.. together. This is followed by a slightly more melodic tinge in 'King Of Madness', still keeping up the strong momentum from the beginning.

After that’s when it gets stale and more of the same-old same-old; 'Supernova' seems a bit like a play on what made stellar track 'The Sky Is Burning' from the previous album so great, but misses most of the marks and falls flat, while closing track 'Cannonball' is silly and stupid and equal measure, as well as dragging on beyond the obvious closer in eight minute 'Eye Of The Storm' - another highlight, with its great buildup and theatricality neatly befitting the melodic flair and great use of the triple guitarist schtick.

The guys have three guitarists, but it rarely ever shows. You’ve got your slight guitar licks throughout, but mostly it’s chugging riffage and power chords strewn with Karlsson’s melodic touch. Sometimes with some keys added. As I mentioned earlier, this is not a bad album. It’s definitely got its moments - like I said, not unlike previous Primal Fear albums. But unlike the guys heroes in Judas Priest who pulled all the stops and put out something ripe with firepower this year, Primal Fear just doesn’t do the same.

The highlights are there, as usual, but beyond that, the music, the vision just seems stagnated, even though its played with ample conviction - and particularly Scheepers delivers with power aplenty. There’s also a tad too much filler here, and overall Apocalypse manages to be a passable album, if only that. And it’s a little sad from a band that helped define aggressive power metal, and hell, power metal itself.

Standout tracks: New Rise, The Ritual, Eye Of The Storm

The eagle has largely been regarded as a symbol of freedom and triumph, but going on 20 years now that truism has been bucked by one of the better known German speed metal authorities to rise out of the millennial power metal revival, showcasing it along similar lines to that of crows and ravens in Nordic lore. While depictions of the famed bird of prey has varied from its traditional incarnation to varying robotic/cybernetic modifications, it has been more the exception than the rule for Primal Fear to depict their mascot as the outright agent of destruction rather than a witness of its occurrence. Such is the disposition of their winged symbol, wreathed in flames like a mechanical phoenix, raining down a storm of meteors and flames upon the hapless metropolis with a black moon in the distance, like an ominous eye leering at the destruction below. Such elaborate visuals, especially when compared with the more mundane one that adorned their previous album Rulebreaker, would suggest a fairly different approach is taking place within the bindings of Apocalypse, Primal Fear's 12th studio LP, though the level of musical departure under consideration is not quite as drastic as one might suspect.

Being a band with a fairly clear cut formula that doesn't really veer to far from the standards set by recent metal classics such as Judas Priest's Painkiller, U.D.O.'s Timebomb, and a number of classic offerings of the late 80s and early 90s out of the likes of Running Wild, Grave Digger and Anthem, there is a fair degree of predictability involved in any Primal Fear offerings. Variation is often found in the periphery, with the biggest variable being the level of impact upon the songwriting by guitarist/keyboardist Magnus Karlsson, who's background puts him more in the AOR-leaning power/heavy metal camp and made him something of an unlikely recruit about 10 years prior when the band moved from Nuclear Blast to Frontiers Records. His was the handiwork that offered up some of the astoundingly massive epic compositions on previous outings such as "We Walk Without Fear" and "One Night In December", to speak nothing for the more cinematic character that this band's output as a whole took on when he replaced Stefan Leibing and guest orchestration man Matthias Ulmer (who's reputation in said department in the metal world is beyond repute) as the guy putting forth the symphonic and atmospheric detailing.

Suffice it to say, this album treads similar territory to its two predecessors from a sonic perspective, although the songwriting and structure at play turns back the clock a bit to when 16.6 (Before The Devil Knows You're Dead) introduced the world to the Karlsson era of Primal Fear. The stage is set by a highly cinematic and massive instrumental prelude in the lead off title track "Apocalypse" that does an effective job at painting musically what the album art itself depicts, resembling recent film score work by Hans Zimmer (a common muse for instrumental preludes on power metal albums of late) with a dash of singing guitar splendor somewhat reminiscent of Queen. The clock gets wound back even further to the Nuclear Blast days with the onset of "New Rise", arguably one of the fastest and most intense speed metal anthems to come out of this band's arsenal, straddling the divide between the band's current sound and the glory days of Nuclear Fire. Slightly less explosive yet compelling nods to the chunky yet speedy sound of Painkiller are found in "Blood Sweat & Fear", "The Ritual" and the album's proper closer "Cannonball", pummeling the ears with high-impact riffs, soaring shred-happy solos and glass-shattering banshee wails.

First impressions, though quite captivating, also prove to be a bit deceiving in this album's case, as the overall bulk of this album takes a more measured and methodical approach that's a bit more along the lines of Accept's mid-paced fair. Punchy grooves such as those that dominate "Hail To The Fear", "Hounds Of Justice" and "King Of Madness" enjoy a larger share of time in the nuclear sunlight that most of this band's back catalog (save maybe New Religion) and represent the majority of the teaser singles that promoted this album, while the bonus material that most core fans of this band will enjoy via the limited edition release of this album in "Fight Against All Evil" and "Into The Fire" have more in common with iconic mid-80s anthems like the sort vocalist Ralf Scheepers delivered with his original band Tyran Pace. This sort of AOR tendency to some of the slower material is likewise mirrored in the album's token ballad "Supernova", which mirrors the Dream Theater influences heard on the previous album's ballad "The Sky Is Burning" but with a more subdued tone, while the album's lone longer-winded epic "Eye Of The Storm" shows some similarities to "We Walk Without Fear", but dials down the dramatic factor and sort of coasts along in a less dynamic yet still largely captivating fashion.

There was little place to go other than down following the two masterworks that preceded this album, but thankfully this is more along the lines of a slight decline rather than a sudden flop into mediocrity. Apocalypse isn't so much an exercise in phoning it in, so much as it is an album that focuses a bit less on the fringes and builds up its base. In this present age of short attention spans and instant gratification via internet streaming, moderate length songs that play it a bit safer, this is the sort of album that may prove to become a bit more common in the coming years, still possessing a somewhat conceptual structure but also catering a bit more to single-obsessed audiences. Most of the same people are still involved, including recently recruited studio-engineer and producer Jacob Hansen (who provided the mixing expertise on the last two albums, among those of countless other European bands), who largely serves up the same slab of colossal sounding brilliance, save maybe a less overt keyboard presence. The overall package comes up a little bit shorter on moments of astounding brilliance, but any fan of this band will be hard pressed to find any flaws.

Originally written for (The Metal Obsever) on August 20th, 2018.

As stock as a title like Apocalypse is, there’s still a certain weight that comes with it. An effort bearing such a moniker doesn’t need to be a dramatic cataclysm or trigger a sense of finality, but the content therein should have some sort of significance or distinction from what has been done before. When you’re a band like Primal Fear, whose modus operandi of high speed power metal has rarely wavered in two decades’ time, one tends not to worry about naming conventions all that much.

To be fair, the deliveries on Apocalypse do seem more cinematic than the last couple outings. The two-minute overture sets up an epic tone that is thoroughly delivered with the choral vocals and harmonies on “New Rise” and later revisited with the more symphonic “Supernova” and “Eye of the Storm.” “King of Madness” also stands out in this regard as the bookending buildups boast that Western aura that seems to be getting more traction lately.

Just as 2016’s Rulebreaker didn’t break that many rules, Apocalypse is pretty much business as usual for Primal Fear. The rhythms are a bit more aggressive overall and songs like “The Ritual” and “Hounds of Justice” feature some beefed up guitar snarls, but the compositions remain defined by sweeping guitar harmonies and Ralf Scheepers’ unwavering wails. Everything sounds tight and it’s obvious that the musicians are right on that line between confident and comfortable.

Going along with that, the songwriting is also very workmanlike. There is a lot of variety on board, but it’s all in preexisting parameters with little in the way of true experimentation. Songs like “Hail to the Fear” and “The Beast” pretty much write themselves, but there’s not a lot to really complain about. This is also one of the few albums that they’ve released without a true ballad, which may be enough to give it some extra props.

Apocalypse sets itself apart from immediate predecessors with its theatrical dabbling, but it does exactly what you think you will. Primal Fear is seemingly done with trying new things and would rather impress listeners by emphasizing what they are already good at. Established fans could probably rank this as one of the band’s top outings and unacquainted listeners may not go wrong in checking this one out either. I’ll still reach for Firepower before it, but Apocalyse still worth exploring.

Highlights:
“King of Madness”
“Supernova”
“Hail to the Fear”
“The Beast”
“Eye of the Storm”

Originally published at http://indymetalvault.com