Review: Primitive Man / Northless – 'Split LP'

PRIMITIVE MAN / NORTHLESS
'Split LP'
HALO OF FLIES

Split EPs are always great because if you know one of the bands and not the other, you never quite know what you're going to get. Sometimes though, you do know and youre left wondering how these two bands will co-exist on a single album together, and that's the case with this split release from Primitive Man and Northless. Primitive Man have been prolific in their output of filthy, fuzzy and distorted doom metal, while Northless favour a more anything goes post-metal approach instead. However in this case it works well.

Primitive Man kick the track list off with the filthy and doomy sludge of 'Empty Husk', which on its own accounts for a full fifteen minutes of the album's run time in all of its feedback drenched and monolithic glory. It is an utterly demonic and thunderous beast of a track that sounds like being dragged through the bowels of hell.

Northless offer up three shorter tracks for their contribution starting off with the cacophonous strains of 'Deleted Heartstrings' resplendent with shifting riffs, noisy distortion and hardcore influenced sludge metal at its core it is a forceful track. 'The 10,000 Year Wound' shift into doom territory while keeping those post metal guitars at the head of their attack for a more focussed and deliberate assault. 'Wasted Breath' closes the album in spectacular style at one point shifting from clear and almost uplifting before crashing back into grim despair.

The production is pretty even throughout with the feedback of Primitive Man and the reckless abandon of Northless being every engineer's worst nightmare it still sounds evenly mixed and the bands end up complimenting each other nicely.

This is quite a nice release. Primitive Man knock it out of the park with ease and despite the long pieces of feedback helping to drag the song out it still flies by. Northless show off a fierce intensity that is justly intoxicating and anyone new to them will certainly be wanting to explore them further based on this.  

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