Somehow I don’t think that a new Primitive Man releasing on Halloween is a coincidence. The folks have a brand to uphold, and I would count them among a select few bands who make music that can be truly terrifying at times. It’s really incredible to think that the trio have been around for over a decade now, and they’re showing no signs of slowing down, letting up or compromising their vision. Observance is the latest in a whirlwind series of monumental releases, and if you can believe it, it might just be the most complete P//M album yet.
Primitive Man are a band that, hopefully, needs no introduction. They are, without a shred of doubt in my mind, the heaviest goddamn musical force on the planet, bar none, on period as the kids say. The trio of Ethan Lee McCarthy, Jon Campos and Joe Linden has been at the forefront of the most extreme of extreme metal, bringing simultaneously blistering and crushing doom to the masses, both musically and lyrically. Primitive Man have never been ones to hold anything back, and their lyrics typically rattle the soul in exactly the same way that their music makes my actual, for-real bones rattle when I see them live. Observance is just that: McCarthy’s observations and experiences laid bare, especially in light of injustices and oppressions faced by the working class, social unrest, human rights and the broken social contract. Especially important to the lyrics of Observance is the work of San Francisco poet Tongo Eisen-Martin, who among a great number of other important things is notable for teaching in detention centers like Rikers Island and San Quentin. This small but important thematic change in the lyrics for Observance allows McCarthy and Primitive Man to explore more feelings than just rage (gasp!); for the first time ever, sadness is a major theme of the album, although McCarthy and gang also consider this the most positive Primitive Man album yet as well. The writing process certainly seems to indicate this: music for Observance began to take shape almost immediately after releasing the Insurmountable EP back in 2022, with the trio describing themselves as “obsessed” with creating the sound heard here.
If you’ve been following the last couple of P//M releases, you know that they have been expanding the boundaries of what their sound is, especially with Suffocating Hallucination, their collaboration with Full of Hell. Observance is something of a return to form, then: it’s less experimental, less reliant on harsh noise, and more full of the choking atmosphere, bone-crushing riffs and insidious tones throughout. Tracks like opener “Seer” and “Natural Law” hit exactly the way you hope and expect them to: there is no other word to describe P//M than “heavy,” and heavy is exactly what you get. Even when they pick up the pace with the little punky sections in songs like the aforementioned tracks, the songs still kick like an enraged Clydesdale. They’re not without any tricks up their sleeve, though. Observance may just be the most nuanced P//M album yet (double gasp!). There are a few scattered actual melodies here that break through the cacophony and oppression, adding some, no shit, levity to the album that has not normally been a feature of the trio’s signature sound. Standout track “Devotion” is a classic P//M romp that suddenly gets turned on its head when the soaring lead work kicks in, and closer “Water” shifts tones nicely on the back of almost lush chords and atmospheres. It’s a really cool direction for the music to take at times, and it helps make Observance’s monolithic runtime not just tolerable, but downright enjoyable.
There is no other band like Primitive Man, plain and simple. I hope they never stop doing what they’re doing, and it does not appear like they have any plans to do so. I can imagine work on the next opus has already begun, so get ready for that. But for now, I think this is a perfect pairing for the spookiest of days in the darkest of timelines. Happy Samhain, you nasty little freaks.
— Ian
Observance will be available October 31 on Relapse Records. For more information on Primitive Man, visit their official website.