HARD NOISE: PRIMITIVE // Flying The Flag For Aussie Style American Metal

The New Wave of American Heavy Metal (NWOAHM) was a blast of fresh air for a world flooded by the turntable screeches and pinched harmonics of the polarising nu metal movement.

MORE: Listen to Episode #32 of Hard Noise featuring The Black Dahlia Murder here.

Bringing elements of thrash, slam and grind back into the forefront of the genre, bands such as Trivium, All That Remains and Shadows Fall would inspire countless generations of young metalheads to pick up the guitar and start hacking away at the frets, with Melbourne-based Primitive among the latest acts to draw inspiration from the genre. “Groove is the biggest word I’ve heard people say about the music. It’s not completely in your face and techy, but it has a Lamb of God and Gojira flavour to it,” says frontman Tim Gauci when we called to get the latest on his new band. “Sprinkle that with some speed metal and that sums it up.”

With the age of pro-tools and bedroom recording allowing more opportunities for new bands to create a product than ever before, there comes a predictable over-saturation of acts making it hard to discern the unique diamonds from the rough. However, Primitive are not letting the increased competition deter them from making an impact, with Gauci noting that “There’s a scene that is quite repetitive, and I think metalheads would agree with that. Not to say we are original at all, we wear our influences on our sleeves, but the pot of influences is maybe a bit bigger in a sense with us. The more songs we write, the more different elements will come out. It’s a hard thing in the early stages because we haven’t thought about solidifying a particular sound.”

Despite not arriving at a sound to call “home” as of yet, Gauci is adamant that launching straight into a debut EP is the right thing for the band to do, with the band taking a risk by releasing “four songs that are essentially the first four that we wrote” for their debut, self-titled effort. “We’d spent enough time practising the songs and making sure they were written as well as they could be, but it was just a matter of being as prepared as we could. “We recorded at Monolith studios with Chris Themelco from Orpheus Omega, but everyone played exactly what they needed to play. There weren’t any arguments—it was smooth.”

While the idea of releasing the first few tracks of a new project may seem daunting and risky to some, a look at the musical history of Primitive reveals that there was a definite musical chemistry before the wheels of the band were set in motion. “Me and the other guys in the band have been friends since we were 12 and playing music since about 14, we just wanted everything to be as perfect as it could without half-arseing anything” says Gauci. “It wasn’t three years in a room doing nothing and then doing something; we had over a year just mucking around before we even decided we wanted to write these songs…then suddenly, we have a few riffs on our hands, so it all sort of worked out and we figured we just really enjoyed doing it.”

Read our review of Primitive’s debut EP here.
Purchase Primitive’s EP here.