For the past 15 years these uncompromising Germans have made it their business to forge the best aspects of speed metal and melodic hard rock into one glorious, seamless ingot.
Given that Unbreakable is their ninth studio record, and also that Primal Fear excelled themselves over the course of their last several releases, the band should be better recognised on this side of the English Channel.
Ex-Gamma Ray singer Ralf Scheepers was among those to audition for Rob Halford’s job with Judas Priest, so it’s no surprise that his own group melds the twin-guitar, banshee-wailing tactics of that outfit with the more considered, anthemic approach of, say, Dokken.
Only while Priest faff around indulgently with Nostradamus, Primal Fear are busy grinding out the meat and potatoes metal of _Give ’Em Hell_, Unbreakable and the über-harmonious Bad Guys Wear Black, with its glorious gumby-ish command to: ‘Bang your head/And never turn it down’.
