Prime Creation – Tell Freedom I Said Hello
Prime Creation – Tell Freedom I Said Hello
ROAR! Rock Of Angels Records
Release Date: 25/08/23
Running Time: 42:30
Review by Simon Black
8.5/10
Sweden’s Prime Creation have been pushing their more modern twist on the frankly tired Power Metal genre for eight years, or three albums – depending on how you prefer to measure time. The players are all experienced hands, but surprisingly the band has struggled to make much of a dent internationally, although to be fair it’s a bloody overcrowded scene over there. Perhaps this is why for their third outing they’ve chosen a darker direction of travel, but then it’s also the first new release since the pandemic, and there’s plenty of subject-matter influence from that particular event likely to be hitting music publishers the world over for quite some time.
It’s a thematically conceptual piece, so the ten tracks explore different aspects of dystopia whilst not requiring the listener to endure and unpick an overwrought story line of the type that plagues Power Metal disks the world over and (title instrumental track apart) all stand on their own two legs well enough. The music also keeps the thematic thread throughout too and compared to the couple of tracks I dipped my toes into for comparison purposes from their back catalogue, are much darker and more moodier than – to the point when I would actually be more than happy to put the Power Metal moniker in the bottom drawer for this outing, as it really doesn’t apply here.
Not that I dislike Power acts – quite the opposite, but when you are the member of the team who does 90% of our published reviews that cover the genre, you get desperate for change occasionally, and change is not something many Power bands really get. So, it’s really nice when something comes along that can trace the genre root but isn’t tied by the tropes, and consequently sounds remarkably fresh and interesting. It’s a very dark beast of a record indeed, down-tuned and bottom-end heavy in the way that had my teenage daughter banging on the ceiling, which always gets bands at least one more point in the scoring, because if she objects, it must be good.
Most of the tracks stick to dark, moody and mid-tempo belters, and with a rich and fat production that really works well. Vocalist Esa Englund stands loud and proud in the mix, and his raw and throaty tinged delivery is a breath of life from the templated clean approach so many bands opt for. Although he clearly can scream and soar with the best of them, that gruff edge means that those Hard Rock roots that are a foundation of classic Power acts influences are not missing, because frankly the Operatic would simply not have worked with this lyrical material.
I also really appreciated that the arrangements retain enough twists and turns to illustrate how tightly these boys can play, while still keeping the anthemic and catchy melodic refrains that give Power bands that accessibility, so dipping the toes in a Progressive direction without being showy makes for an effective and tight forty-two minutes of really quite solid and heavy tunage.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Tell Freedom I Said Hello
02. Promised Land
03. Erased
04. State Dominion
05. Fallen
06. Journey Through a Wasteland
07. Receiver of Memory
08. My Last Farewell
09. Into My World
10. Dystopia
LINE-UP:
Esa Englund – Vocals
Robin Arnell – Lead Guitar
Rami Tainamo – Rhythm Guitar
Henrik Weimedal – Bass Guitar
Kim Arnell – Drums
LINKS:
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