Ultimate-Guitar.com recently caught up with PRIMORDIAL guitarists Ciaran Williams and Mick Flynn to talk about the evolution of the band, their distinctive sound, and the band's future. An excerpt is available below:

UG: First of all, what's your background with Primordial? How long have you been with the band? When did it start?

Ciaran: "Myself and the bass player and his brother started jamming when we were about 14 in 1987, so that was just kinda punk covers and odd bit of IRON MAIDEN and anything we could play basically, we were a bit shit then. I think it was until we were about 18 and we gradually got into death metal, particularly Swedish death metal."

We decided to advertise for a singer and Alan picked it up and we started off doing gigs in Dublin, just covers, DEATH, LEPROSY, CANNIBAL CORPSE."

Mick: "What were you called then? I wasn't in the band..."

Ciaran: "For a while we were called FORSAKEN, we recorded a demo in '93 in the Skerries and we were going to call it Primordial Beginnings but there was a band in Malta called Forsaken so we said, alright, we call ourselves Primordial. Worst mistake we ever made (laughs). We recorded the first album with that line-up and then just before recording the second album Pól had a big row with his brother and they don't speak since. O'Laoghaire (the current drummer) joined the band then. After that Mick joined for the next album."

Mick: "Yeah, I joined nearly ten years ago, it was about 2001."

Ciaran: "We were playing gigs and there were harmonies and stuff which just sounded crap when I did them on my own."

Mick: "From that album, from Spirit The Earth Aflame on, there's a lot of layered guitars and harmonies so they really needed a second guitarist for it to work live."

UG: So you just learned the stuff for the gigs by ear then?

Mick: "As much as I could, Ciaran was always there to show me as well."

Ciaran: "He knew most of it well enough, and it added an extra dimension and the live shows were a lot better. We've actually gone from the point where we started layering things up too much, so that we couldn't play them live, where there were three or four harmonies, that it started getting muddy, we've gone back now to the basics, for clarity's sake. That was a long story (laughs)."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Primordial released their new album, Redemption At The Puritan's Hand, on April 23rd via Metal Blade Records in Europe. It will be available on April 26th in North America.

Redemption At The Puritan's Hand tracklisting:

'No Grave Deep Enough'

'Lain With The Wolf'

'Bloodied Yet Unbowed'

'God's Old Snake'

'The Mouth Of Judas'

'The Black Hundred'

'The Puritan's Hand'

'Death Of The Gods'

Vocalist A.A. Nemtheanga recently commented on the album's cover art: "So it's finished, ready, done and dusted as they say. The cover was done again by our by now resident art executioner Paul McCarroll from Unhinged Art. Simple I think you will admit but definitely one that we argued least about through all the years, dark, macabre and beautiful it perfectly portrays the themes of the new album, which I will get into shortly."

Nemtheanga about the recordings: "So how does it compare? For the first time I guess we felt a little pressure, before 'To The Nameless Dead' we had always been a niche band, a critics choice but following TTND we moved a little more centre stage. Expectations my friends, expectations! Yes it contains rabble-rousers and hooks and choruses, memorable themes and dynamics but also it has darkness in spades. It has grit, filth and foreboding. Dark sweeping tragedy as always mixed with blood stirring defiance!

The recording of course was booked during what has turned out to be one of the worst winters in living memory in Europe. Leaving Ireland at –15 to travel to a –20 Wales, trudging through feet of snow, slipping on black ice and basically having our bollix frozen off for three weeks left me thinking next time I’m going to record in the Bahamas and fake all this grimness. For good measure I got what looking back must have been swine flu recording the vocals. In fact some I can’t remember recording, I was so out of my head on painkillers and energy drinks. Suffering for your art is over rated believe me."