Primary Slave – Another Mark Is Drawn

So Primary Slave, this seems to be a postumus album, since the lead singer/guitar Mark Giltrow tragically died in a accident during the conception of this album, so not too sure if Primary Slave will continue or not, besides that, the band is from the UK and has Lee Dunham on guitar, David Palser on bass and humm… G (aka Graham Lyons) on drums, so lets check out this “Another Mark is Drawn”.

Ok from the whole cover/artbook and such, it gave me kinda a tech metal/industrial vibe, i was thinking Fear Factory meets Sybreed, but alas no, Primary Slave sound is more the sound of a “new Korn” with touches of industrial, not my thing entirely but still maybe its just my prejudice.

Album starts up with “Powdered”, not a bad track at all and a good one to start, given the more slow paced of the rest of the album , its good to start faster and harder, vocals are good and brazen, but nothing too hard, a nice hard metalcore track, next is “Defiled” this one is basically a melodic track with a pretty catchy chorus, if i was a gambling man this would be the first single, it has a bit of everything with a guitar solo in between, “Eye Feel Free” is a bit more on the tech side with some synth work, but it kinda sounds like the last track just with… synth work and then an all out screaming chorus, still nothing to call home about.

“Dead Ocean” starts up with a nice groove but ends up on a bit of a garbled chorus, see in my view this kind of music lives or dies by its chorus, “The Game” is a pretty straightforward nu-metal track loud but not that heavy, with a whinny chorus, im feeling the emo is strong on this one “C.R.E.A.M.” is jamming, i like it, very groovy synth track passing to a pretty bland but sorta cachy track, not bad at all, even with a weird ending…

“Cums a Round” is a bass heavier and groovier track, again with some weirdly placed synth work, but overall a good listen, “Up Sailing” brings us back to more melodic stuff, and although not my kind of stuff, i think its probably their best track up to now, its catchy, simple and sounds great, reminds me a bit of a slowered paced Mastodon track, good one! “The Answer” starts up bad with random synth loop, guitar crescendo into a kinda of poor man’s stoner metal kind of thing, it could be good if maybe they took some of shit out, music wise is pretty good, but vocals/synth kinda kills me on this one, the album ends with “The Time it Takes to Die”, finally some nicer metal/synth work, but the vocals to me sound a bit out of place, and so it ends.

So production wise it leaves a bit to be desired, the sound seems lacking, sounds like they are playing on the next room, but since well this was a problematic album to make… i hate giving bad news, well not really hehehe, i have a problem with Primary Slave they don’t seem to have found with this album the perfect meld of what they wanted to do, it has touches of pretty fun kick ass stuff, but it then melds with poorly mixed synth work and badly dissonant vocals (in the sense that the vocals are good but don’t blend all that well with the music), its probably me, but it sounds a bit messy, still if your into this kind of cybermetal, nothing wrong giving Primary Slave a go!

Official Site Primary Slave | Myspace primaryslave

Videos for Powdered and Defiled

Primary Slave – Powdered

Primary Slave – Defiled

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