I’ve seen Primordial a few times over the years, but never headlining. And they don’t do many club shows unfortunately, but only appear on festivals. And now with a new album under their belts, this is a one off chance probably to see them headlining in a club on this short tour with a rather peculiar package. And the weather was extremely hot that day, so the club was most like a sauna.

Starting 45 minutes later than announced, were the French Alcest. I never heard them but heard lots of them. So I didn’t really know what to expect. It turned out to be some rather slow, dreamy music thin clean vocals and occasional harsh black metal vocals. Not bad, but it all sounds a bit too light for me. Primordial singer seemed to enjoy this a lot as he stood near the stage sound board.

Then there was While Heaven Wept who I did hear before, but I can’t remember much of that gig. It must have been in 2004 tho. Anyway, this is classic doom metal with keyboards from the USA. Like Alcest, this band was okay, but not all that interesting. Mostly mid-paced doom with some interesting guitar work here and there. The vocals on the other hand sounded way too thin for me and lacking power.

Then finally Primordial appears as the intro tune is played. Singer Alan had his face war-painted again and carried his enthusiasm over to the crowd from the first moment to the last. The rest of the band concentrate more on their instruments. I can’t say that Primordial have any bad songs, so they can’t really go wrong with any set list really. Naturally there is a lot from the new album and a mixture of older songs. The opener is “No Grave Deep Enough”. Even the amazing song The Coffin Ships gets played, as well as the good-old Gods to the Godless. The overall sound is reasonably good after the vocals are turned after a minute or so. No encore is played so the set is closed with the more than excellent Empire Falls. This is really an excellent performance by an excellent band. The only downsides are that there is no song off Storm before Calm, and the continues asking to show hands or horns or whatever gets pretty old. But anyway, this band should do lots more club tours.

Set list:

• No Grave Deep Enough
• Gallows Hymn
• As Rome Burns
• Lain with the Wolf
• Autumn’s Ablaze
• Bloodied Yet Unbound
• The Coffin Ships
• Gods to the Godless
• Death Of The Gods
• Empire Fall