A lot of us wake up every day and dread what’s about to unfurl. It’s been tough to find a reason to muster the strength we must in order to handle the bullshit shoved down our throats each day, but here we are, man. It’s enough to want to torch the living shit out of something just to get this frustration out of us.
Primitive Man are back with “Observance,” their first full-length in five years. Any journey alongside this band—vocalist/guitarist Ethan Lee McCarthy, bassist Jon Campos,drummer Joe Linden—is a torturous one, but this album is even more imposing and suffocating. This is a ferocious, hungry furnace of a record, one that takes the misery and anger and transforms it into intimidating sound that pile on tons of noise and doom. These are formless beasts, devoid of hooks and thrills and fully committed to complete destruction and a hellish bloodletting that provide the torch for your misery.
“Seer” arrives disruptively, noise piercing and hulking, guitars frying as McCarthy’s howls devastate, doing ample psychological damage. The heat spreads as the sounds slow and batter, increasing the pressure, roars opening chest cavities. Guitars turn as the insanity multiplies, monstrous wrenching choking off air supplies, a mountain of soot piling at your feet. “Devotion” scratches open, morbidity clogging veins, a guitar haze hanging overhead as the vocals torment. The chaos stretches as sounds simmer, growls leveling as everything is dragged through the mud, dangerous levels of noxious fumes rising. Guitars emit energy as the power glows, doom chugging and corroding before fading away. “Transactional” is a goddamn monster, punishing and mashing in calculated fashion, growls lashing as the guitars hypnotize for a stretch. Sounds spiral and infect, the bass chews away at muscle, and then the pace hits a higher gear, slithering and sludging through carnage. Deafening interference rings out as sweltering force ripples, hammers fall as growls club, and what remains bathes in acid. “Iron Sights” is an interlude, delving into fuzz and feedback, basking in an electrical storm swirling overhead that feels threatening.
“Natural Law” unleashes desperate wails, and then the guitars torch, spinning before ripping open, ravaging as every element mangles whatever is in its grasp. Screams jar as the pressure squashes, steam rises that makes existing a challenge, and the menacing pace keeps grinding flesh into pavement. Your mind tingles as everything slowly pulls back, dissolving into poisoned waters. “Social Contract” starts with percussive claps and clashes, then the guitars open, chattering folding through the darkness, the bass bending bodies in half. Growls are buried in the fury, guitars create a thick fog, and loopy melodies give off a disorienting sensation, as if your blood sugar is dangerously low. Howls eat away at metal as a rubbery tempo confounds, drums swing, and the ritual punishment smolders. Closer “Water” stomps with authority, the growls flex, and the temperatures rise, tangling and forcing seismic change. Leads lather as the playing grows dizzying, the screams punish and peel back sanity, and torturous hell is achieved that you’re pulled into with force. The blows land repeatedly, each one grislier than the last, deliberate shots antagonize, and the entire beast breathes harder and more destructively, blaring out into savagery.
We stand at a precipice that a lot of people with power both willingly ignore and lustfully push ahead at the same time, and “Observance” is the result of Primitive Man taking stock and firing back with volcanic fury. This record is one of their most intense and sonically violent, an excursion into hell on earth forced on us by people who stand to gain from our losses. This record is a warning to those who usher in this era as it promises pain and retribution on the other end for turning the world into a playground for tyrants.
For more on the band, go here: https://primitivemandoom.bandcamp.com/
To buy the album, go here: https://www.relapse.com/pages/primitive-man-observance
For more on the label, go here: https://www.relapse.com/
Meat Mead Metal 