Artist: PRIMAL FEAR
Album: NEW RELIGION (CD)

Year: 2007
Media type: CD

If you’re talking about today’s European top metal acts the discussion is heading straight towards Primal Fear. Former Gamma Ray vocalist Ralf Scheepers and bassist/vocalist Mat Sinner, two of the most respected German metal musicians founded the band in late 1997. They recorded their first Primal Fear songs for the Japan based record company JVC Records, together with drummer Klaus Sperling and guitarist Tom Naumann. They got signed immediately and Germany's best kept secret became soon a target for many of the European record companies. The band finally signed to Nuclear Blast Records in early 1998 for the rest of the world.

The debut album, simply called Primal Fear was released in March 1998 and entered the German album charts straight on position 48, soon followed by similar chart success in Japan. The band recruited guitarist Stefan Leibing to their line up and started touring together with Running Wild and Hammerfall. The second PF album Jaws Of Death entered the German Charts on position 49 in July 1999, followed by their first headlining World Tour. The tour was a huge success incl. countries like Brazil, Japan and of course Europe. A kind of PF hysteria broke free and surprised all metalheads, who couldn't understand, what kind of thunder was raging above them!

Primal Fear released another 3 studio very successful studio albums (“Nuclear Fire”, “Black Sun” and “Seven Seals”) which entered the Top 100 charts in many European countries. After some line-up changes (that brought in Canadian drummer Randy Black) and the release of a “Best of” album aptly entitled “Metal Is Forever”, Primal Fear waved goodbye to Nuclear Blast and signed a new recording contract with Frontiers Records.

Primal Fear started the songwriting for their next studio album in October 2006 and the recordings started shortly later, again at the House Of Music studio with engineer & co-producer Charlie Bauerfeind (Blind Guardian, Saxon, Hammerfall) and longtime producer and bandmember Mat Sinner. Randy Black proved again, that he’s one of the world class drummers at the moment and singer Ralf Scheepers delivered his most exciting and outstanding vocal performance ever. Most of the guitars were played by Stefan Leibing. Starbreaker and Allan/Lande producer/guitarist Magnus Karlsson helped out with two stunning guitar solos, before Henny Wolter rejoined the band and played some more lead & rhythm guitars on the album. Epica's lead singer Simone Simons was invited to studio to sing the first duet in Primal Fear recording history, the song Everytime It Rains which seems to be the next hit in Fear's recording career. For the first time, the band moved to the Galaxy Studio in Belgium, to work with award winning engineer Ronald Prent (Rammstein, Iron Maiden, Manowar) on the mix of the album.

And another song is surprising with a huge wall of atmosphere and drama Fighting The Darkness, divided in 3 different parts, the first part 'Fighting The Darkness' is – according to Mat Sinner - the best sounding tune, the band has released so far, followed by a huge instrumental 'The Darkness' and a ‘Reprise’.

Primal Fear improved their sound to the max and again the orchestra arrangements by Matz Ulmer and Mat Sinner reached an incredible quality standard. But not only this part of Primal Fear's music sounds reloaded today and more powerful than ever before. The album opener Sign Of Fear metals like hell with extreme and very sovereign vocals by Ralf, followed by the cool paced melodic highlight Face The Emptiness. More typical songs like Blood On Your Hands, Psycho or Too Much Time will please Fear's Nuclear Fire fans, while the title track New Religion, The Curse Of Sharon and World On Fire shows Primal Fear at their best, with a combination between powerful riffs and fantastic melodies! The album's final song The Man (that I don't know) is a very strong and outstanding ballad, with superb vocal and guitar performances!

Two video clips were recently produced for Fighting The Darkness and Sign Of Fear.

New Religion is the most competent and powerful Primal Fear album ever. The band improved their sound with a lot of new ideas and a lot of courage. The album will be released worldwide on September 21st 2007 by Frontiers Records and their partners. The Primal Fear New Religion World Tour starts on Oct 6th in Atlanta/USA, followed European Tour in October and November. A Japan Tour is already booked in December plus more European Dates on Xmas. Another visit to the US & South America is panned for early 2008.

Primal Fear is all fired up and totally dedicated to bring their new songs to the stages of the world!

TRACKLIST:

01 Sign Of Fear
02 Face The Emptiness
03 Everytime It Rains
04 New Religion
05 Reprise
06 Blood On Your Hands
07 The Curse Of Sharon
08 Too Much Time
09 Psycho
10 World On Fire
11 The Man (That I Don't Know)

LINE-UP:

Ralf Scheepers – Vocals
Stefan Leibing – Guitars
Henny Wolter – Guitars
Randy Black – Drums
Mat Sinner – Bass & Vocals