Primoridum is comprised of former members of shredding death metallers Heavy Lies the Crown.  If you’ve come for technical guitar permutations, forceful mid-tempo chunks, surprisingly melodic lead-work, ultra-clear bass licks and hyper-speed blast tactics, you’ll be in good hands.  This is a solid slab of punishment from these Indiana upstarts.  As ridiculously brutal as this shit is there are classical scales and modes happening in the 6 string department and the shifting sands of their music is a harder to pin down than a desert mirage on the move.  I would say Nile, Lykathea Aflame, Derelict, Gorguts, Deeds of Flesh and Anata are a few reference points that aren’t too off the mark, but these guys are definitely on their own program.

A typical and textbook “Intro” incorporates piano, violin and symphonic arrangements to lure you in before sinking a spear into your side via heavy thrusts of palm-muted, shred your head riffage and opulent double-bass runs.  Things really start cooking on “A Process of Becoming.”  Intricate guitars lay waste to ascending/descending tremolo runs, savagely mauled melodies, tasteful solos, crunchy lurches, stealth bomber blasts and vocals that are primarily guttural roars straight from a pyramid’s catacombs.  The brutality is more omnipotent and solar-charged than any number of ancient Egyptian gods.  This shit would piledrive RA into the pavement.  It feels like there’s a Nile/Lykathea Aflame influence going on, but that’s noticeable in the delivery of the band’s sundering onslaught as opposed to the actual music which is more akin to Deeds of Flesh.

Fluid, pleasantly audible bass licks are strewn throughout the blast shrapnel and chainsaw guitar decapitations of “The Opaque Semblance.”  Cleaner guitars tickle the tit of elegant flamenco playing, erupting into fretboard shred, madcap soloing and open, melodic riffs thereafter while the vocals spray rotten vomit chunks out of your speakers’ mesh.  An off-balance, wraparound groove permeates the early goings of “The Incursion,” the precarious daredevilry teetering back and forth on the double bass ballast which tests the threshold of perpetual motion as it falls into a netherworld of torn husk blasting while those lopsided, sludgy riffs shamble forth until speeding up into PCP abandon alongside mental asylum solos.

Piano, violins and synth make for a beautiful, absinthe drenched intro to “Esoteric Purification,” providing a deceitful red herring for the blast your balls off, destruct-o-rama of the ruthless drumming and rampant, scathingly precise tech riff/lead trade-offs.  The bass injects melody where there probably shouldn’t be any, as the guitars open up harmonically one minute and then comes back down like an avalanche of concrete blocks the next.  An outro, “Instrumental” pole-vaults across a battlefield of relentless mortar n’ machine gun mincing while clean texturing offers respite only to be beat to smithereens by solos that will work your nuts like a boxer with warheads strapped to his fists punching an Everlast bag.

Primordium is certainly off to a promising start.  They manage to stitch together tech, melody and over the top brutal death metal without sounding boring or stagnant.  The songs have numerous memorable parts on this EP and it will be interesting to see how things will play out on a full-length.  In the meantime, the band just underwent some lineup changes, so time is yet to tell how and if the new members will alter the progression.  As it stands, Aeonian Obsolescence is a kick ass debut.

[Visit the band's website]

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