Album Review: Primitive Man – Scorn

Primitive Man
Scorn
Throatruiner/Mordgrimm Records

Primitive Man is a huge, heavy lumbering beast of the Doom / Crust Metal variety, but completely lack any type of direction. The tracks are very vast, heavy and spacious, but the compositions are downright boring.

There are elements here that are positive: the low, guttural vocals, the heavy, dark miasmic guitar execution, the sub-sonic low-end bass playing and the heavy spacious drumming. It’s just that they’re not being used in a way that’s at all exciting or intriguing. Primitive Man have the necessary tools but they’re not using them to their full potential.

Doom has always been a slow and heavy beast. Bands like Primitive Man walk a tight line between excellence and monotony. It’s a game where every note counts and everything must be downright deliberate. It’s like wielding a sledgehammer with the precision of a scalpel. The elements of the tracks are minimal; they must be arranged in a way to keep the overall composition interesting. Once you cross the line into the land of the mundane, it’s hard to recover. I literally could not wait for some of these tracks to be over, becoming annoyed and fidgety while listening to Scorn. I enjoy bands that are indeed “Primitive”: St. Vitus, Triptykon, Celtic Frost, Portal, The Secret, Elitist, Valborg, Thou and Von, to name a few. Scorn just does not deliver.

Dave Meredith

PrimitiveManDoom.com