Caustic is a fitting title for the second album from drawn-out Denver death doomsters Primitive Man, who push the patience with no less than 77 minutes of misery on this release. Having set the tone with their Scorn-ful debut and subsequent series of splits, you pretty much know what you’re getting into when you push play: music to drink bleach to.
The first two songs are short by Primitive standards, clocking in under six minutes each. But this certainly isn’t speed metal—they set the tone early on, from the first lumbering riff on “My Will.” “Victim” offers up a more mid-paced death-metal attack, throwing in a couple d-beats before it falls off a cliff around the 1:30 mark, slowing the pace to a heavy, sludgy crawl, complete with guttural death growls that would make Chris Barnes proud.
Curiously enough, the title track is just a 40-second interlude of fuzz and distortion, leading us into the 12-minute epic “Commerce.” I’ll leave you to decipher the underlying economic message here—let’s just say this track is as caustic as any you’ll hear on this one, even delving into drone territory for an extended period.
If anything, this album is almost too much of an evil thing—so much bludgeoning sludge with little variation in tone or tempo. It almost becomes oddly, hypnotically relaxing after a while… but maybe that’s just me.
primitivemandoom.bandcamp.com/album/caustic
GRUESOME GREG rating: 7.7
