Full of Hell & Primitive Man
Suffocating Hallucination
CLOSED CASKET ACTIVITIES
The only thing more thrilling than watching a music genre adapt is the anticipation in knowing that it has to in order to survive. And, like a living organism, heavy metal is continuing to change, splintering off into subgenres, then re-forming itself when those subgenres meld with each other. As the process continues, the purists get alienated while more and more curious onlookers turn their heads, mirroring the expanding scope of the evolving species.
None of this matters to Full of Hell and Primitive Man, bands that represent metal’s most opposing extremes: the rag-doll whiplash of grindcore and the endless deliberation of doom metal, respectively. In theory, a meeting of the two minds could produce perfect metal-pop songs lasting three minutes and 30 seconds each. But Full of Hell and Primitive Man are too busy venturing into the unknown to care about that.
Indeed, the result of the bands’ metal mashup/melee are four songs that pull hard in Primitive Man’s direction: long compositions that give each band the opportunity to explore the luminous ether produced by their combustive collaboration. It’s an exciting experiment that sees both bands eager to give, well, suffocating hallucinations to true believers of both genres represented.
Full of Hell fans are used to this, after the band previously collaborated with The Body and Merzbow, in addition to releasing splits with Nails and Code Orange. Their 35-minute experiment with Primitive Man begins with “Trepanation for Future Joys” and “Rubble Home,” songs cleverly spiked with as much suspenseful build-up as their counterparts “Dwindling Will” and epic closer “Tunnels to God” are packed with horrifying finality. Tucked between the two sets of two songs, however, is an additional track, “Bludgeon.” It’s as raucous as you’d expect—a 26-second soundtrack to kids running berserkly around a spouting fire hydrant.
It’s in those 26 seconds that you can almost see the joy on the faces of the musicians. It’s probably the same look they had while making the 11-minute album closer—an expression of pure glee so potent that it smashes to pieces whatever barriers lie between speed-obsessed grind and droning doom. If you get caught in the debris, don’t expect anyone to lend you a hand. It’s your own damn fault for pressing play.
