Have you ever been a witness, live or televised, of a thundering herd of wildebeests, trampling earth underfoot as they run for their lives? Have you ever watched in awe or terror as one animal is tearing the throat out from another? Nature has given us the visuals that can be the stuff of nightmares, the type of horror play that has the tendency to both sicken and fascinate. Colorado’s Primitive Man may be the perfect soundtrack for such violence, the soundtrack to Nature’s harshest, yet most life-sustaining moments.
In 2013 Primitive Man unleashed their scathing debut album, Scorn. It was exactly that, a scornful, hate-fueled album filled with the utmost ferocity and savagery. It was also an album that laid to rest any misguided ideas about the blending of crust and doom, as Primitive Man was able to take both, paint them with a blackened brush and proudly display their art in a proverbial gallery of barbarity. It was hands down one of the best albums that 2013 produced and firmly cemented Primitive Man as an up-and-comer in the metal world. Fast forward two years, and a handful of split releases later, and Primitive Man is back with a new EP deftly titled Home Is Where The Hatred Is. If home is truly where the hatred is, then Primitive Man are sitting on the couch, feet up, and making themselves perfectly comfortable in this den of vehemence and sonic sadism.
The album opens with the track released last year as a single, “Loathe”. Pounding drums and constant feedback finally give way to a barrage of black metal-styled guitars meets almost tribal drumming with ferocious vocals throughout. The track shifts again to the doom-laden, skull-crushing heaviness that Primitive Man have become known for. At this point it becomes more than apparent that Primitive Man are on a mission over these next 31 or so minutes to not only build off what they started with on their previous recorded efforts, but they want to pour a foundation of pure aural concrete only to smash your face into it as they add on additions to this particular hatred-powered home.
The next track, “Downfall” starts with a circle-pit inducing cannonade, only to be obliterated in a combination of both blast beat fury and sludge interludes, finally slowing to a monolithic pace, like a giant beast fighting in slow motion against quicksand. But it’s this interplay between genres, this ultimate raging internal battle between power and fury that make Primitive Man, and especially this album so frightfully entertaining. It’s the forces of Nature attacking all over again, so completely terrifying, yet so equally captivating all at the same time.
The only drawback to this gem is that we are gifted just four tracks this time around. The hope is that more new music is on the horizon. In the interim we will have to be content with continually digesting this EP like a bunch of overweight gamblers at the casino buffet line; hating ourselves for wanting more of a good thing than we could possibly handle, yet oblivious to how much we are ingesting because everything about the experience just feels so damn good in the worst possible way to our overall well-being.
Home Is Where The Hatred Is is due out through Relapse Records on February 17. You can experience the track “Loathe” at the Relapse Bandcamp page.
