Retro-Review: Primitive Man – Scorn

Welcome to Retro-Reviews, a space where I indulge in my own nostalgic reveries, reminiscing about a time that never truly existed, but one that I’ve crafted through various random albums that hold significance for me. Whether good or bad, one thing is certain: remembering can be a bittersweet journey.

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It’s 2013, the Iranian nuclear deal is alive and well, Nelson Mandela passes away at 95 years old, the Pope resigns, and Snowden leaks NSA classified documents. Oh right, the Metal! It was a killer year with classics from Carcass, Gorguts, Cult of Luna, and Altar of Plagues, but today, we’re going to talk about Primitive Man‘s Scorn.

I’m going to cheat this time, since Scorn isn’t part of my memories, it’s actually from one of our readers who had fast fingers last week and was brave enough to comment something. You see? I keep my word. Hence, though I’m familiar with Primitive Man‘s formula, Scorn was a new experience for me. Perhaps my fundamental detachment from the album will help me answer the question I always have starting this section: does it still hold up more than a decade later? Keep reading and you might find out.

Scorn is oppressive, exhausting, and dark, and I don’t mean that lightly (see, what I did there?). If you’re going through something difficult in life like depression, anxiety, or trauma, I might ask you to think twice before you jump into something of this caliber. Scorn is more than just convulsive anger, it’s an album filled with hate. You don’t need the lyrics, which can be scarce in many sections, to feel how this vortex of denied freedom is slowly crushing you. It’s so basic yet so effective. I had decided to listen to Scorn while I was at the gym and, well, let’s just say that power session became all the more grueling. It amplified my pain, but in a rewarding way? Primitive Man was shouting at me: “do you feel guilty? Do you feel the agony of a thousand broken hearts? Of the enslaved and the forgotten? You don’t? Then keep lifting, you wimp!”. Proof that you can get motivation out of the weirdest places.

Primitive Man does so much with little here. Using distortions that were so popular back in the 2010s in Doom and Sludge, sticking to a few ideas to enhance the sense of claustrophobia, and using backtracks that I’m not sure if they’re too much for my taste, but they’re harrowing, so I guess it’s a morbid success. Scorn is a masterclass in building tension to unbearable levels and then exploiting it with concentrated brutality. Those disgusting vocals do call you back from some pitch-black abyss.

I do believe that Scorn is a product of its time and it uses many of the tropes that you could find in contemporary bands like Sumac, Thou, or The Body. Bands that you sometimes wonder if they even know what music genre they’re playing. It’s so anti-Metal in form, but so Metal in substance. So Primitive Man crafted a great postmodern interpretation of the Doom/Sludge/Post-Metal sound of the 2010s. In this aspect, it is a product of its time.

It’s hard to say if you’re supposed to enjoy Scorn, but it surely made me think and got my attention most of the time. Yes, it turned deeply uncanny in the interlude tracks, but if you want to test your endurance, Primitive Man sculpted something dreadful for years to come.

Now it’s your turn again, comment on another old album. Ten years or more and I’ll probably retro-review it.

Label: Relapse Records

Release date: August 20, 2013

Website: https://primitivemandoom.bandcamp.com/album/scorn

Country: USA

Score: a great product of its time!