Tag Archives: Home Is Where The Hatred Is

Primitive Man / Sea Bastard- Split EP

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Primitive Man Sea Bastard- Split EP cover ghostcultmag

 

Around the same time last year, Primitive Man and Sea Bastard released two of the most hateful – and well received – products of the year. The former’s vicious EP Home is Where the Hatred Is (Relapse) and the latter’s nightmarish split with Keeper (Dry Cough Records) were followed by a joint tour of the UK last spring and, with this split release (Dry Cough Records), the bonds the two outfits have forged now become indelible.

Primitive Man’s two tracks kick us off, and with a familiar feel: the band’s squalling, Blackened Sludge given added horror by the face-melting roar of Ethan McCarthy. The clanking, Low-end ferocity of ‘Cold Resolve’ is certainly augmented by some of McCarthy’s most fearsome barks to date, and the portentous squeals of the sinister drop are enough to collapse the nervous system. The resonance of bass and drums launching us into ‘Servant’ also have a primal minimalism which clears the bowels: its fizzing, sparing riff a tolling bell which flays the skin with each swing, McCarthy’s voice the scouring brush rubbing salt in the open wounds, the brief quickening a Deathly flash. It’s a terrifying assault: appalling, guttural, startling, physically affecting…and damn satisfying.

Another near-20 minute slice of snaking pummel from Brighton’s finest closes this tormenting platter. ‘The Hermit’ largely follows the Bastard template but unusually, so gradually you hardly notice, it gathers pace through a viscerally pounding, pregnant centrepiece. Oli Irongiant’s deep, singular, painfully slow riff sets the tone before the lumbering behemoth is brutally awoken by the pulverising rhythms of Steve Patton and George Leaver. Telling the tale of the persecuted Northern monk St Cuthbert, Monty’s screaming roar wraps itself around the mellow hundredweight like your favourite Serpentine villain, rising and falling with each line, carrying that Sabbath-esque quickening toward a low, nefarious final movement which is both torturous and earth-shaking.

This “split” has been in the pipeline for some time and, thankfully, it’s been worth the wait. Crushing and hostile, these are two of the most exciting Doom-centric bands around right now and to have them both on one plate is a horrifying bliss.

8.5/10

PAUL QUINN


Primitive Man – Home Is Where The Hatred Is

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Abstract is the new brutal. The principal focus of Extreme Metal has always been to make music that sounds as violent or destructive as possible, but over the last couple of years a growing number of bands in different sub-genres have embraced a more subtle approach. Whether it’s Gnaw Their Tongues and their followers blending Black Metal with Noise elements, Blut Aus Nord embracing dissonance or Portal deconstructing familiar Death Metal into something totally other, it’s becoming more common to encounter Extreme Metal which doesn’t so much punch your face as make you doubt its existence.

Primitive Man are one of a current circle of bands – Sea Bastard, Keeper and Indian among their peers – engaged in stripping so-called “Sludge”, that ugly child of Punk and Black Sabbath, of its Blues influences and sense of groove and focussing entirely on its capacity for bleakness and discomfort, and are arguably the leaders in their circle when it comes to abstraction. Home Is Where The Hatred Is (Relapse) continues from their independent debut album Scorn with thirty minutes of abstract rhythms, broken chords and growled vocals that steadfastly refuse to describe anything as uplifting or recognisable as a riff.  It’s a thick, genuinely unsettling morass of noise and almost ambient amp abuse, and when they do allow themselves a brief moment of Grind-fuelled violence at the start of Downfall it’s almost a relief – though one that’s rapidly overtaken as the song collapses once again into dissonance and atmospherics. There are similarities to Khanate, of course, in their use of dissonance and unorthodox song structures, but as their name would suggest they seem less artful and refined, more… well… primitive.

It is extremely difficult to criticise HIWTHI, not because it’s without flaws, but because any apparent weaknesses (tracks blurring into another; the lack of satisfying climax; the sense of dislocation and frustration that pervades) are so obviously the result of very deliberate choices by the band.  They’re not bugs, to borrow from the clichés of IT, but features. This isn’t the dirty, angry Rock ‘n Roll of Eyehategod or Iron Monkey, and it doesn’t seek to press the same buttons – this is genuinely ugly, unsatisfying, dissonant music from a band who aren’t interested in catharsis or making you rock out.

 

8.0/10

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RICHIE HR