PRIMORDIAL– How It Ends CD

The album kicks off with a bang – the title track standing out as the highlight among the offerings. This song encapsulates everything I adore about metal. It's powerful and belligerent, yet imbued with pathos. The vocal melody is truly superb, striking the perfect balance between catchiness and subtlety, with an addictive melancholic undertone. The guitar work is exceptional, transitioning from harmonized leads to powerful riffs, providing the song with an intriguing structure and development. The lyrics are also noteworthy, offering a poetic yet scathing critique of the bleak state of free speech in contemporary times.

That being said, "How It Ends" is still a pretty good album, successfully sparking my interest in Primordial and prompting me to explore their back catalogue promptly. In that respect, one can consider it a success. On the other hand, while the LP includes some strong highlights, there's also too much filler, subpar, or dull material here to label this album among the best released this year in the melodic extreme metal universe.