Awesome Bands You Should Know...PRIMITIVE MAN

PRIMITIVE MAN is a intense, devastatingly heavy band from Denver, Colorado. The group is comprised of current and former members of CLINGING TO THE TREES OF A FOREST FIRE, DEATH OF SELF, WITHERED, & REPROACHER. The group formed in Denver back in  February 2012 with Ethan Lee McCarthy on Vocals and Guitar, Jonathon Campos on Bass, and Bennett Kennedy on Drums. The trio soon set about crafting savage material drawing elements of Doom, Death Metal, Black Metal, Noise, Drone, Sludge, Crust, and more. Their efforts would soon begin to take form and in October 2012, they entered Flatline Audio, in Denver, with egineer/producer Dave Otero. These sessions would yield their debut LP, "Scorn". This nihilistic, oppressively heavy record would initially be released in January/February 2013 by the band themselves, in conjunction with Mordgrimm and Throatruiner Records. The album was released only on Vinyl in a limited pressing, and featured 7 tracks of audio violence, utter devastation, and ominous atmosphere.

The record opens with the title track, "Scorn", which clocks in at a monsterous 11:44, and demonstrates right out the gate that this band is not to be fucked with. Collossal riffs and ear shredding feedback collide with McCarthy's scorched vocals and misanthropic lyrics, and within this massive first tracks the weak shall be weeded out. This is not for the faint of heart. The meek shall inherit nothing. PRIMITIVE MAN are here to trample the weak, hurdle dead, and get fucked up in the process. During this opening onslaught, the band demonstrate they can not only play slow, pulverizing Doom and Blackened Sludge, but that they can also briefly bust out faster tempos that hearken to the Grind of McCarthy's other main group, CLINGING TO THE TREES OF A FOREST FIRE. Its interesting because in some ways, PM is almost like the reverse version of CTTTOAFF, as PM play a Blackened Sludge/Doom with brief elements of Grind and Death Metal, while CTTTOAFF play Grindcore with occasional elements of Sludge and Doom. "Rags" follows and opens with a hellish groove that would make EYEHATEGOD proud, before slowing the pace to a Death/Doom crawl. Next is "I Can't Forget", the first of a couple disturbing, atmospheric, interlude type tracks. Its quite haunting and truly adds to the overall disturbing aura of the record as a whole. The second longest track of the album follows this, in the form of "Antietam" a 9 minute war of attrition that is all hate and power. After the first 2 minutes of slow motion devastation, things pick up and we get some Crust Punk infused bursts. After a bit we return to a crawling pace for several minutes, before hitting a nice groove inflected stomp for a bit, and then ultimately returning to a slow trudge by songs end. "Black Smoke" is another horrifing interlude piece that is difficult to describe but adds to yet another layer of menace to the proceedings. "Stretched Thin" is the shortest track on the record at just under 3 minutes and is easily the fastest and most Grind and Crust/Punk infused of all the tracks. Its not super fast in the grand scheme of things but in the context of the album, it seems like they're fucking flying off the rails. Finally, we come to the closer, "Astral Sleep", which features huge chunks of Blackened Sludge and Death Doom for most of the track but also rallies the troops for one last blast of faster paced action before closing things out in feedback. Shortly after the release of "Scorn", PRIMITIVE MAN would part ways with Bennett Kennedy, and pick up Isidro "Spy" Soto as his replacement on Drums. About a month after the release of "Scorn", the band would offer up an EP for free via digital download, by the title of "P//M".

This EP would feature 3 tracks of more atmospheric, Ambient and electronic material, including a PORTISHEAD cover. Fastforward to June 2013 and PRIMITIVE MAN would get signed to the prestigious extreme music label, Relapse Records, who would re-release "Scorn" on CD, Digital Download, and limited edition Vinyl LP. The re-release Vinyl LP would be see a pressing of 1000 copies, 700 being standard Black with the other 300 being a "Beer" colored LP that is a beautiful golden brown. This Vinyl reissue would have the same tracklisting as the initial release, however the CD and Digital versions of the Relapse version would include 3 extra tracks, "Lifetime", "Innard$" and "I Am Above You". In a very short amount of time, PRIMITiVE MAN have asserted themselves as one of the foremost bands in Extreme Metal. "Scorn" is one of the best albums of 2013, without a doubt, and for fans of extreme Doom this is your new favorite band. 2014 also looks to big a big year for PRIMITIVE MAN as they are starting the year off with a bang by dropping not 1, but 2 new releases.

First, they have a new split 7" with XAPHAN coming out in January, through Init Records that will feature one new song. This 7" is being pressed in a limited edition of 1000 copies. The 2nd release is due out in February through Tartarus Records. This release is a new cassette tape that focuses more on the Noise and Drone side of the band. It will include the materian from the digital P//M release plus a number of new tracks including a CROWBAR cover, for a total of almost 90 mins of brutality. This cassette is being pressed in a limited number of 100.

There are countless Extreme Metal bands these days and an ever growing number of Extreme Doom bands that take Doom more extreme directions like Death/Doom, Blackened Doom, Sludge, Funeral Doom, etc, etc but tuning low, and playing slow doesnt necessarily result in great music, in and of its self. PRIMITIVE MAN have shown they have what it takes to create interesting, and truly powerful music that while rooted in the slow and crushing end of the spectrum, is also quite capable of utilizing other elements such as Noise and Ambient, to create a more lethal end result.

Check out all PM news, go here... http://primitivemandoom.com/
For merch, go here... http://primitivemandoom.bigcartel.com/
To here these jams, go here... http://primitivemandoom.bandcamp.com/

Andy Sweitzer

Vinyl Album of the Day is OTESANEK - Final 12"

Vinyl Album of the Day is OTESANEK's final release. I guess its technically maybe self titled, but so is their first album, the one with the rams heads on the cover so this one has a sort of unofficial title of Final 12" as its a 12" record and it was their last release. It was released only on vinyl, in 2009, jointly, by Nancy Jo Records, Otesanek  and Reification of Misery Productions. OTESANEK was a band from Philadelphia that existed in the 00's, but called it quits before the end of the decade. They played a powerful combination of Doom, Death Metal, Drone, Sludge, etc and are one of my favorite "slow", heavy bands.

There were 500 copies pressed, with the first 111 copies including an extra linocut insert stenciled in human blood. It features 2 songs, both of which were recorded by Mick Mullen at Super 8 Studios in April 2007, the same session that their track "Seven Are They" comes from, which was released as part of "Fo(u)r Burials", the 4-way split with LOSS, MOURNFUL CONGREGATION, & ORTHODOX. The tracks were mastered by Prairie Cat Mastering. This 12" album features 2 songs in total, as I mentioned, with one track on each side of the record. Side A is "Resonance of War" and Side B is "Sanguinary".
The amazing cover artwork was done by Pippi Zornoza, who has continued to make killer art and music, so check her stuff out as well if you get the chance. The beautiful artwork is truly stellar and these pictures dont do it the full justice of actually holding the album in your hands and looking at the detail, but this will give you an idea.

"Resonance of War" begins with slow, massive, downtuned slabs of Droning Doom riffs, feedback, and low growls in the background. Its the patented sound of the mighty OTESANEK, slow, menacing, tortured and ominous. About 2 and a half minutes in the drums finally come in, and the corrosive destruction gets even uglier. Things continue on in uber slow and ugly fashion until about the 6 minute mark, when this Philly based crew of destroyers, kick into a speed burst that has been basically unseen from the band since their Demo days. The band had always played extremely slow, brutally heavy music that combined Death Metal, Doom, Sludge, and Drone with a sort of Experimental streak, but on their Demo, they also included a few faster parts even incorporating Blast Beats. So this fast section is something different from what OTESANEK had been doing, and the dynamic it creates is killer. Due to the slowness of the first 6 minutes, the fast part seems even more extreme and blazing, and when the slow, bone crushing heaviness returns about a minute later, it seems even slower by contrast. The vocals following the fast section are some of the most disgusting, gutwrenching vox Ive ever heard too, so thats another high point. They trudge slow and low again til about the 8 minute mark then kick off another fast section to take us out to the end at about 8:28.

"Sanguinary" opens with a bit of feedback and then a short fast section which is again kind of different for these guys. They alternate between their usual slow and devastating sound and these short blasts of faster stuff for a bit, then about a minute and a half in, everything pretty much comes to stop, and it just crawls for a bit, then we kind of return to the back and forth between the quick bits of chaos and the Death/Doom. Between 3:30 and 4 minutes we pretty much slow all the way down to nothing again, and we have just this tense minimalistic section where there is just a chug here and there from the guitar and very little else save a percussion hit here or there. About the 6 minute mark, shit gets super heavy again, and the vocals come back a bit different than usual, in that some of it isnt super low and guttural but more strained and wretched. Its just slow and crushing here for a couple minutes, then by about 8:30 we've slowed almost down to a stop again. From there it gets noisier and nosier until the finish at just over 9 minutes.

And that's it, the record is over and so was the band. The band had actually called it quits prior to the release of this record and so this release was basically their swan song. Some of the liner notes are also imbued with the finality as there is Thank You's for those you "understood". OTESANEK was a killer band that existed in the deep Extreme Metal Underground and during their existence, never got the recognition they deserved, and still are largely unknown.

They only put out a handful of songs spread across 5 releases, but I suppose on the upside, all those songs are pretty long, so you get more material in a few songs than you would alot more tracks by a Grind band with 30 second songs. Its interesting that this record, their final release, has 2 of their "shorter" songs, compared to previous material. These tracks, and the one from the same session that was used on the "Fo(u)r Burials) split are all shorter than anything else they released except for a song or 2 on their Demo. OTESANEK released a total of 9 songs in their existence, The Demo tape from 2002 features 4 songs (clocking 32:35), the 2004 self titled CD features 2 songs (clocking 30 mins), the 2007 split with COFFINS features 1 song (clocking 22 mins), the 2008 4-way split "Fo(u)r Burials" features 1 song (clocking 8:33), and finally this 2009 final record features 2 songs (clocking 17:29). So when you break it down, they released only 9 songs, but its just over 100 minutes of music, so they average over 11 minutes in length. This group did something truly powerful and unique and if you're a fan of extremely heavy, visceral, ugly music then I encourage you to check these guys out. Particularly if you're a fan or Extreme Doom, Funeral Doom, Death/Doom, Drone, etc. If you are interested in OTESANEK and would like to read a more in depth piece about their entire existence, check out this "Awesome Bands You Should Know...OTESANEK" piece I wrote, here.... http://dodobirdzine.blogspot.com/2013/03/awesome-bands-you-should-knowotesanek.html .

If you would like to here one of these jams here is "Sanguinary"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xi-PFAEMz0

If you would like to purchase this record, here is a Discogs link...
http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=147852&ev=mb

Andy Sweitzer

Awesome Bands You Should Know...OTESANEK

OTESANEK was a band from Philadelphia that made some of the heaviest, most extreme music I have ever heard in my life by combining elements from a variety of Extreme Metal subgenre along with their own artistic  sensibilities that border at times on the Avant Garde, while remaining visceral and raw. The band formed in 2001 and would feature Demian Fenton and Chad Pfeiffer on Guitars, Rudy Steinhauser on Drums, Ryan Riggs on Bass, & both Brad Dumville and Leslie Weitz on vocals. The 1st release from the band would be a Demo tape in 2002. This cassette tape would be self released by the band and feature 4 tracks. & a total length of about 32 1/2 minutes.

The initial release of this demo consisted of 100 hand numbered tapes, although the band would produce more of them, but after the 1st 100 they were no longer numbered. The recording was dubbed onto pre-existing Fundamentalist Christian tapes. The recordings were done in the Bassist Ryan Steinhauser's basement by Sean Dorn in November of 2002, and the tapes were released by the band shortly after. This Demo established OTESANEK and their basic sound as they fused together elements from some of the more extreme subgenres of Doom, including Drone, Death/Doom, Sludge, & Funeral Doom. However, not everything was super slow paced on these demo tracks, as there are a few moments of Blast Beats, and faster parts interspersed throughout all the slow, crushing jams.  All these elements combined with the individual artistic streak of the band members themselves proved to be an interesting, and very extreme sound. Over the next couple of years the band would be working on new material and playing live, and then in 2004, OTESANEK would release their next album. 

This self titled album would be released on CD through the label, Electric Human Project. The album was recorded in the spring of 2004 by Steve Roche, in his basement, and would be released a few months later, in July, in a limited pressing of 1000 CDs. There are 2 tracks on this record, the first is entitled "Oceans" and clocks in at about 10 1/2 minutes, while the second song is called "Dead in the Park", and has a hefty run time of 19 minutes & 30 seconds, giving the record a total run time of right about 30 minutes. Both jams are incredibly slow, devastating examples of just how extreme Doom can be. Dueling vocalists, both screaming their guts out, ungodly heavy guitars with just killer tone, minimalist but quite fitting percussion, and deep lowend. Its the sound of being dragged down a gravel road, naked at 10 miles an hour. Its going to fuck you up, slowly. The faster parts, and blasting that were heard on the Demo are now gone, in favor of extremely slow, torturous Death/Doom, Drone and Sludge combined to make some of the ugliest, most misery filled jams that humans have ever created. Obviously, if you were to attempt to trace the origins of the band's sound to their influences, I'd say a few of the bands that come to mind would be some kind of a mix between Corrupted, Khanate, & Thergothon, with maybe also a bit of Eyehategod, but I think the EHG influence was a bit more prevalent on the Demo, than on these tracks. Regardless, OTESANEK still very much had their own, unique sound, while there were elements of the bands I mentioned, they didnt attempt to sound like anyone but themselves. The next release from the band would come a a few years later in 2007.

The Split album betwen OTESANEK and Japan's COFFINS, would be released in March 2007, on CD and Vinyl by Parasitic Records. Both the CD and LP versions were limited editions, with only 1000 CDs and 666 Vinyl LPs pressed. The first 111 LPs came with a handscreened poster, handstamped in black ink, numbered, and stenciled in human blood. The cover art, as seen above, was created by Steve Mullay, who killed himself shortly after he created it, and was used in tribute to him. This album contains 4 tracks total, with COFFINS contributing 3 tracks (2 originals, and 1 GOATLORD cover), and OTESANEK performing 1 song, "Narcotic Hues", which would be the longest song OTESANEK would ever record, clocking in at almost 22 minutes. "Narcotic Hues" was recorded in February 2005, again by Steve Roche, in his basement. The song features a very long, ominous build up for the first chunk of the song before finally delivering the feral bludgeoning we expect, as it comes in wave after crashing wave of sonic filth and malice. This LP would later be reissued by Kreation Records on limited edition clear/splatter vinyl. There were 500 total pressed and available in clear vinyl with red, blue, and gray splatter. After the split with COFFINS, there wouldnt be as long of a wait this time, before the arrival of the next release.

In 2008, Blake Judd's Battle Kommand Records would release this amazing 4 way split album,

"Four Burials". It features one track a piece from 4 of the best bands from the extreme end of the world wide Doom scene. Track 1 is OTESANEK's contribution, "Seven Are They", which runs at just over 8 1/2 minutes. It seems much shorter than its 8 plus minute run time, and its actually the shortest song on this 4 way split. It's not as drawn out as much of Otesanek's material, particularly compared to a piece like "Narcotic Hues", which builds up for quite some time before finally delivering the sludgy destruction. On "Seven Are They" we get OTESANEK at perhaps their most viscious and violent. Its 8 plus minutes of total nihilistic, misanthopy in audio form. Its taken from OTESANEK's final studio session in April of 2006 at Super 8 Studios, where they recorded with Mick Mullen. Track 2 on this split is the amazing Funeral Doom band LOSS, from Tennessee, with their song, "(To Pass Away) Death March Toward My Ruin", which is 14 plus minutes of suicidal despair. Next up is, Spanish, Drone band, ORTHODOX, who contribute the most sedate track on here and also the longest, in the form of "Heritage", which is 18 1/2 minutes long. Finally, the last track comes from Australian Funeral Doom monsters, MOURNFUL CONGREGATION, who deliver the 10 minute crusher, "Left Unspoken". The initial release of this album, came as I said, in 2008, through Battle Kommand, in the form of a limited edition pressing of 1000 CDs. It was re-released on on beautiful vinyl by The Flenser just a year or 2 ago, with new artwork, and I think possibly a different mastering job. One year later, following this 4 way split, we would get the final release from the now defunct OTESANEK.

In 2009, Nancy Jo and Reification of Misery Productions co-released this 12" Vinyl record, the final release from OTESANEK. It would features 2 songs, "Resonance of War" on Side A and "Sanguinary" on Side B. As with pretty much everything Otesanek every released, the release was a limited edition as only 500 LPs were pressed, and of those 500 records, 111 of them included an extra linocut insert that was stenciled in human blood. The album artwork was done by the amazing artist Pippi Zornoza, who has is an exceptional artist who's created killer art for many other bands and is also involved in a number of music projects herself, including THE ASSEMBLY OF LIGHT CHOIR, VVLTVRE, THRONE OF BLOOD, WOLD and more. The 2 tracks on here come from the same recording session as "Seven Are They", which was featured on the "Four Burials" 4 way split. The session took place April 2006 with Mick Mullen at Super 8 Studios. These final tracks are as good as anything the band every recorded and while they are definitely in line with OTESANEK's established sound, in some ways these songs take the band full circle, back to their demo days. After the Demo, the band pretty much only played extremely slow and never really played fast at all, ever, but on both these tracks there are some moments and parts where they pick up the pace and get a bit chaotic and fast again, which harkens back to the Demo tracks. Its interesting and definitely gives the songs some extra dynamics, These brief bursts of speed give the slow, crushing parts that much more impact. It would have been interesting to see where the band would have went next, whether they would have began incorporating more speed and chaos into the mix, or if they would have returned to Droning, drawn out pieces. Its hard to say, but regardless, its a mute point. What we are left with is a small, but amazing body of work that demonstrates just how far and how extreme music can be taken when a group of individuals come together who have the vision, the heart, and ability to take their collective influences and ideas and create something totally new. So if you like the more extreme ends of the Doom spectrum, like Funeral Doom, Death/Doom, Drone, Sludge, etc make sure you check out OTESANEK. 

http://www.last.fm/music/Otesanek

Andrew Glen Sweitzer