Primordial seemed to have all the seeds planted and ready to sow with A Journey's End, but the band really hit their stride with Spirit the Earth Aflame. It's funny because it really doesn't get all that much attention when you compare it to The Gathering Wilderness, which is the band's accepted breakout effort, but Spirit the Earth Aflame is nearly as good. When I see the album artwork for this album (silly snake, don't bite your own tail), my association with it is more of progressive metal. I'm not sure if that's accurate, it's just a vibe I get, but the songs do have a bit different of a sound than any other Primordial album. Perhaps it's the production being a little less heavy, giving the music less of a dense sound. It also, true to the logical progression of the band, has a lot of aspects that feel more truly black metal. I remember running into the term black metal with this band when I first discovered To the Nameless Dead and thinking it was an out of place term, but you can see why the were labeled as black metal with an album like this. I think this album lacks a bit of the star power of their later works, but it's really well put together as a whole. It's probably their third best effort, which is saying a lot. It has a nice mix of the band's earlier and later sounds that make it a perfect link album, but the music is incredible in its own right, too.