Knowing well who, or what, Full of Hell and Primitive Man are separate, it is no surprise what to expect should these forces ever collide. Suffocating Hallucination (Closed Casket Activities) is just the very chaotic collaboration I expected, but even more sonically harsh and violent than originally thought. Five tracks drag you relentlessly through a half hour of torture and misery. To make this clear, these are all compliments of what is a literal, aural trip through Hell itself.

‘Trepanation For Future Joys’ opens up Suffocating Hallucination with clean guitar riffs that are quite ominous and odd like Full of Hell. But then quickly the distortion, slow tempo, and booming vocals come raining down a la Primitive Man. Harsh noise blanketing the doom and gloom is such a mixture of artforms that only these two bands could pull off together, and this track is a testament to it. 

‘Rubble Home’ starts with similar creepy clean guitar riffs that turn to distortion on a dime. If it was not clear before what the album title is, this song makes you feel both in a hallucinated state while gasping for air. Truly harrowing and uncomfortable, but you just cannot stop from slowly bobbing your head as if in a trance. ‘Tunnels to God’ closes out this journey with a very definitive, yet slow-draining, end. The repeating riff throughout this monster of a closer is that the end is here, crossing over to the next life, whatever it may or may not be. In the end, only feedback and chaos realm over screams from the vocalists.

I never knew how much the mash-up of Full of Hell and Primitive Man, bands I adore on their own as it is, was going to impact me from the very first listen. Even with the jumpscare of a grindcore song right after ‘Rubble Home’ suitably titled, ‘Bludgeon’, I can wholeheartedly say I loved this album. 

Flowing through each of the tracks is a true experience and sounds best straight through, no one track necessarily better than another. Suffocating Hallucination may be the only time we see this collaboration, but it was a literal soundtrack to our nightmares that has been birthed into the universe.

Buy the EP here:

https://closedcasketactivities.com/collections/full-of-hell

9 / 10

TIM LEDIN