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This, Primordial's third full-length, was their first real masterpiece, and where the transformed from the noisy, woodsy Black Metal of Imrama into the epic pagan beast they have become. Leaving behind the generic sound of older works, these Irish forged their own sound and have never gone back.

Opening with the odd intro, with Nemtheanga intoning the lyrics like a manifesto while the war-drums pound, the band launches right into the monumental "Gods To The Godless" like a declaration of war. "I have one desire/ let it be/ a Plague upon your lands/ a Plague upon all your houses/ it is my wish to enslave all your people/ the soil enriched with their Blood." Huge riffs, thundering rhythms, and Nemtheanga's powerful, emotional vocals. The mastery never slows, not with the power of "The Soul Must Sleep" or the massive "Children Of The Harvest", and the album's centerpiece, the blazing bonfire of "The Burning Season". This is a more melodic album than the dark and angry The Gathering Wilderness or the dense, epic To The Nameless Dead, but it is no weaker for any of that. There is a repressing that also contains the other three tracks from The Burning Season EP plus a re-recording of "To Enter Pagan". Normally I decry bonus cuts, but these fit right in with the rest of the album both compositionally and recording-wise, and so they are like adding another 30 minutes of awesome to this already grand album. This is a magnificent work by one of the great bands when they were just hitting their stride. Essential.