Ever just sit in total darkness, alone, exposed just like Bambi’s mother, and let the planetary ugliness swarm unto you, enveloping, burying, dragging you deeper into the earth below ’til your lungs drown in soil – no, I’m not even finished – only to be kept alive whilst being stripped bare of all flesh as your naked essence is dealt a serious thrashing? I sure hope not. Sitting, or laying, and letting your imagination run rampant is hellish enough*, but the waking nightmare that is a Primitive Man dirge comes pretty fucking close to dismantling even the sturdiest of dispositions. Such mind-shattering terror ain’t human – after 2017’s deathly veinscraping Caustic I came to the only rational conclusion: that Denver’s nastiest trio are clearly not of this planet; in fact, they’re interdimensional demons hellbent on forcing all of us to confront the trainwreck of our existence head on. Not convinced? Then sit through latest effort ‘The Lifer’ and change my damned mind. It’s exhumed straight from Immersion, their third album due August 14th via Relapse Records.
I mean, can you honestly tell me after staring into that eye for what seems like an eternity you have not emerged a different person? That after such godless bludgeoning you haven’t left even a tiny slither of you behind? Too late, for that piece is gone, lost in the void, and searching for it is nothing but an exercise in futility. Every ounce of life it forced you to abandon now endures an endless bombardment of bone-splitting bludgeons, never to have the strength to hold itself up again. Its nerves fried and eviscerated, every neuron fires like a Gatling Gun to a brain already overloaded with horrifying stimuli, a brain that can never switch off. These seven minutes may as well be stretched ad infinitum, crawling through the pitch black hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel, the hope dying in your eyes, and the joy you once clung to is left in tatters at your feet – once you reach the light this joy lies withered to oblivion, not even as ash. Faced with a tormented ultimatum of either going back in or continuing forever forward only thing shall remain constant: that eye shall forever be etched into your eyelids…
Or, just maybe, ‘The Lifer’ is simply just as devastatingly heavy as anything else Primitive Man have ever done, nothing more than another dose of death sludge the world wants you to avoid but secretly tempts you with it; every now and then it reminds you just how catastrophic and twisted the human experience can be. But holy hell if they didn’t pull out all the stops on this one: it’s arduous, grueling, and darker than previously imaginable. What’s more, this is just a taster: they still have another 27-ish minutes left to unleash. Is two months long enough to prepare for whatever hell is about to come our way?
Follow the band here.
You can preorder Immersion here and here.
You can also run your spirit through the gauntlet that is their back-catalogue here.
*- our imaginations, and our minds, can be our enemies just as much as they can be our allies. They can help propel us forward or they can drag us to places we would never wish to visit. If you are lodging in such a place, please reach out to someone; if you know somebody who is dwelling in such depths, please reach out to them. More than ever we need each other right now. Sometimes just a thoughtful “hey, how’s it going?” can be enough to let somebody know you are there for them. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to need help. My intentions with such an analogy was to portray just how devastating this group’s music; it is my hope I have not made light of anything you or someone you know may be going through or have gone through. Keep on rockin’ and I hope you are having a good day.
The Motorfuzzin' Ibex 
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