Primordial Ireland

""Redemption at the Puritan's Hand" delivers dark melancholic Celtic metal music with elements of traditional Irish music and black metal. The black metal elements are restricted to the overall atmosphere, a ubiquitous use of tremolo picking (which is not insanely fast though), and snarling black metal growls every now and then.

So, if you expect black metal mayhem, then you are perhaps going to be disappointed. But the dark atmosphere is there, and this is not your stereotypical polka bopping troll metal. The instrumentation primarily consists of the classic rock music configuration, and the folk inspiration is anchored in the more melancholic department of Irish and Celtic folk music, and its loci are the melodies, the underlying drive and the lyrics.

The music itself is not technical as such, and the production is not too polished, and that suits the dark nature of this release quite well. The drums have an awesomely broad and deep booming sound and provides an excellent bottom for the quite dirty sounding guitar. The vocalist A. A. Nemtheanga has a very powerful, expressive and very rock-ish voice, and, in addition to being an excellent vocalist, he has no problems also delivering harsh black metal vocals. He certainly is one of the main fortes of this Irish metal band.

"Redemption at the Puritan's Hand" delivers dark and melancholic metal with a couple of black metal elements, which perfectly contribute to the dark atmosphere. This is an interesting dark metal album which certainly is worth a listen.

(review originally posted on metalmusicarchives.com)"