HOLOCAUST - Primal
July 1, 2003, 21 years ago
(Edgy)
Man, it's so hard to warm up to Holocaust in the '00s. But I suspect that's the plan, John Mortimer likely fully aware of how nasty, brutish and New Model Army-bound his weaponry tastes from a gun barrel halfway down the throat point of view. Having said that, Primal is as close to the beloved charm of the old sound as you're likely to get out of these rained-on curmudgeons, even if it's only the material at the heavy, sinister end of the spectrum. Picture dark, political punk crossed with rude renditions of early Metallica of all speeds, plus maybe a bit of mechanistic Ministry (without any of the technology), produced sloggy and trashy and you've approximated the enigmatic gutter-swill drowning Mortimer's battered British brain. And man, for the most part the lyrics don't match the grey music, even if Mortimer's hollow vocal scowl drags them into the same pit of perdition where his band lies clashing.
