Hatred comes home. There's no settling down. There's no taking it easy or leaving time to breathe for a band like Primitive Man. The band has laid down some of the most crushing and heavy pieces of blackened doom/sludge mingled with caustic noise. The release of their 2013 debut Scorn independently (and later on Relapse) was just the band warming up. And while we don't have another full-length from them yet, their latest offering Home is Where the Hatred Is continues to serve as a sledgehammer promise that nothing is over.
The album starts out heavy. I don't know what else you could expect, this is a Primitive Man album. Opening with the colossal eleven-minute “Loathe” (a track that went up for download back in August 2014 via Trve Brewing and Flatline Audio), the band makes no joke about how quickly they wanna crush your neck. From the piercing feedback to barbaric drums and fuzzed out bass, it's a track that makes no bones. It's a song that picks up in momentum as much as it drops to a slow, shattered leg crawl. Ethan Lee McCarthy's vocals continue to be the single best reason why this band is called “Primitive Man.” Sheer, primitive screams and barks and add rot to the rust.
The other three brand new songs the band turns out march much in the same vein as “Loathe.” Though “Loathe” is the closest thing that Primitive Man turns out for melodic, the band also showcases a more hardcore/punk vibe on “Downfall.” The piece even sounds a bit like it could have been a part of the Vermin Womb EP Permanence with its blasty bits. Though it falls back on heaviness, feedback and the slow, doomy trudge.
What might be the most aggressive bits are the final two tracks: “Bag Man” and “A Marriage With Nothingness.” It's the “marriage” of the two songs that makes these offerings interesting. With “Bag Man” serving as sinister, and final lingering threat before the noise aspect picks up in “A Marriage With Nothingness.” The loop and drone to a short melodic piece are driven to the sounds of orgasmic shouts, intensifying with every moment. And it picks up more and more to the point that the distortion is scraping at your speakers like sandpaper and the girls are right in front of you. It's a feverish to say the least.
Primitive Man isn't a band that is terribly varied within itself. They have strong execution and consistently spit out songs that ooze hatred, depression and ugliness. Home is Where the Hatred Is pulls no punches about what it is. It is an ugly, battered, seething bastard that will beat you with a jagged piece of metal. If you've enjoyed the band's furious past then this is probably something you're already listening to. If you're not sold on the band yet still give this a shot. These four offerings are some of their best tunes yet.
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