Storm Before Calm is the fourth full length release of Irish metallers Primordial. Not having heard their previous albums, I can say that I was completely surprised by this band on my first listen, a feeling which only grew as time passed by and left me wanting to rush to the nearest music store to check out their previous releases as well.
While the basics of their music are firmly rooted in black metal, Primordial manages to deliver a lot more than just that by spicing up their sound with folk elements and creating a truly dark, epic and majestic sound by doing so.
The combination of a healthy dose of aggression and power with a lot of melody, the occasional acoustic passage and the varied vocals (switching constantly between clean and shouting/ grunting) although done to death by now by a lot of other bands, obviously works wonders for Primordial and makes them stay ahead of most of the competition with ease.
Each track is well worth listening to, but personal favorites include the skull-bashing opener The Heretics Age, Fallen To Ruin which occasionally reminded me of the Bathory Hammerheart and Twilight Of The gods albums (something which happens more often on the record as well) and the acoustic, folky instrumental What Sleeps Within. All in all it can be concluded that Storm Before calm is well worth checking out and certainly left me wanting more (and made me somewhat ashamed that I didn't discover the band earlier already).