Thursday 22 March 2012

Primitive - Into The Void

Self Released 2011

1.Age of Men 2.Slaughterhouse 3.Nothing Remains 4.Into The Void

‘Age of Men’ shows its intentions very quickly, groove laden guitars setting the tone for the entire song whilst a slight progressive element makes this opening track “something different”. Add in a heavy dose of melody to proceedings and things really get interesting. Musically the band describe themselves as melodic death metal, but there’s definitely a lot more than that to the bands sound, the progressive layers something not normally associated with standard death metal and they add an extra dimension to the bands sound, drawing the music away from that standard death metal formula. It’s really the vocals which keep this track just on the right side of death metal, growled yet understandable in places. ‘Slaughterhouse’ is heavier than the opener, less of the progressive element on show, although the time signatures used give the track a very claustrophobic feel, feeling a long way from your standard four four beats. As with the opener, the pace set is slow and never ventures far from that, which is where the song falls flat. For all the proficient musicianship on display, the music is definitely lacking an edge. The guitars may be well played, but never really stand out as anything special, many of the riffs being fairly standard metal, sometimes even rock orientated in nature. As mentioned previously the vocals are once again keeping things on the right side of death metal…just!
‘Nothing Remains’ flows directly into where the last track left off, no real distinction between the tracks and again the pace drags the song along at an almost crawl. ‘Into The Void’ begins to show some real promise, some of the riffing being used is extremely catchy, melody at the core but unfortunately the song returns to the uninspiring riffing seen in earlier tracks. Having said that, the band do re-introduce more catchy, melodic riffing which when use alongside the screamed, almost tortured vocals works really well. It’s just shame the band left it until the last track on the e.p. to up their game and show that they can write a good, memorable song. Pace isn’t everything, but after listening to all four tracks you can’t help but wish that the band had just decided to “let go” every now and again and really “go for it”. Instead each of the four tracks are dragged along at a slow, sludgy crawl which begins to become frustrating and ultimately uninspiring. The progressive elements and unusual time signatures add something slightly different into the mix, but not enough to really grab your attention or make the songs really stand out. If the band could capture what they have created on ‘Into The Void’ in every track they write, then they may be onto a winner, but for now there’s a real way to go!

5 out of 10

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