Primordial Serpent – The Funereal Winter (2023)

September 25, 2023

I was drawn in by the fantastic cover art (who can resist fog and trees when it comes to black metal) and I was not at all disappointed by what I found. Majestic is a word that gets thrown around alot when it comes to certain elements of black metal, but maybe not so much when it comes to lo-fi one man projects. Primordial Serpent is not lo-fi to the point of becoming unlistenable (and to be honest, it doesn’t sound like it was deliberately recorded on a potato), but there is a duality between the simplicity of the setup and the sprawling nature of the epic guitar riffs. This is one of the many dualities that makes black metal so exciting, if you ask me, so it’s absolutely great to see that at play here.

My main complaint with The Funereal Winter is that it is over too quickly. This kind of songwriting is more fitting for the LP format in my view, and I find myself playing this through twice every time I put it on, because the 20 minute or so runtime just doesn’t seem to be enough. All in all, this is hardly a bad thing, and I greatly look forward to hearing more Primordial Serpent material.