On August 9th 2019, Primitive Race released their album “Cranial Matter”. For those of you who don’t know of them, Primitive Race is a supergroup of some of the biggest names in alternative and metal. According to the limited info on their Spotify page, they originally began as an “industrial collective”. However they then evolved into a “static lineup” featuring the likes of the late Chuck Mosley (Faith No More), Erie Loch (LUXT, Blownload, Exageist), Mark Gemini Thwaite (Peter Murphy, Tricky, Gary Numan), Chris Kniker and drummer Dale Crover (The Melvins). For this review we will be focusing on the track “Turn It Up” which features the mix of Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo. What did we think of it? Here goes!
The track begins with a eerie intro, something to be a expected from a group whose routes stemmed from the Industrial genre. The vocals don’t waste anytime in this, coming in not too long later however you can definitely hear this is some kind of Gary Numan tribute so that influence is felt. However, following this, out of nowhere comes this wall of sound that hits your face like you’ve lost control of the vehicle at 300mph, it’s a little disorientating as you can’t really hear much of what’s going on. It continues this way throughout the song, even at a low volume it’s incredibly unsettling, hardly something you’d respond positively to the request of turning it up. A very ambitious goal was set out here, it’s a difficult piece of music to listen to as there’s very little clarity in the mix and different elements get lost as a result. The way we can only describe this is a much, much heavier version of Arcadia. Very artsy in some ways that is incredibly niche, something that we can accept that fans of this kind of music would readily accept. Even at a little over two and a half minutes this is a hard sell.
“Turn It Up – Dave Lombardo Mix” by Primitive Race was released on August 9th 2019. You can listen to it on Spotify and Bandcamp. You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter.
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