Primitai - The Calling

Recklessly rocking and carousing rivet heads, alongside mildly sensible albeit unbiased, broad-minded adepts of dynamically bustling twin guitar cavalcades – chiefly, even those moderately inclined towards harmoniously brisk and zippy “traditional” heavy metal mainstays such as Holy Grail, Striker, Sin Starlett, the now sadly disbanded Steelwing (RIP), Skull Fist and, providentially, the here vivaciously zooming, cutting-edge showcase’s fellow emerging (yet raucously cautionary) Englanders, on top of concomitant record label ward, Toledo Steel – are, forthwith, hysterically railroaded into digging, as a dream feverish, exultanty “shnuffling” and burrowing rockchuck, their spiritedly animated way through Primitai\s latest and fifth, sleekly sophisticated full-length album sedulously titled “The Calling”, released digitally and on CD back in May under Britain\s far-reaching and industrious Dissonance Productions (“Urf!” to the tenth power!).
 
Ensuing a dust scarfing, yet appropriately reflective and panoramic, minute-or-so-long violin strewn intro in “Possess Me” – a slight, puttering pistol shot which still suitably launches this increasingly gripping drag race – one is left blandly expecting more of the same darkly minacious atmospherics during the opening bars of “Demons Inside” before being swept up and away by an electrifying, high voltage volley of compact and melodiously shredding ax riffery stuck fast to the battery’s unyielding and versatile pummeling, the lot of it masterfully galvanized by an intensely liberating, as well as compendious, alt-rock styled front man who mercurially switches back and forth between soulful, passionate croons and gruffly excised fist-pumping overtures, the likes of which energetically get the (un-biological) juices flowing.
 
This markedly applies to the album’s impressive first half, namely a sequential trifecta of profusely radio-friendly but no less slick and phantasmal storm riding afterburners in “Overdrive”, “Curse of Olympus” and last, but infinitely not least, “No Survivors”, likely my “elección número uno” thanks to its oh-so-throttling split-fingered riff-age locked in tandem with the suave, sky-reaching singer’s uncharacteristic resistance to calm and composed domestic insistence...
 
Ah! Check out this breezy albeit vehement humdinger’s stellar and majestically downwind, if not mondo-conclusive, post-chorus bridge verse preceding a spastically brilliant slew of hallucinatory lead pyrotechnics, imbued as it is with an intense, déjà-vu-like familiarity:
 

 
The album’s chrome polished and meticulously refined level of production factors in as a massive contributor to its sweeping, glossy sheen, with each member’s dutifully honed contributions equably rising to the fore, from the guitarists’ sharp, urgent tones which are diametrically opposed to the singer’s chill and precise, though reasonably upper-ranged, locutions to the steadfastly altruistic rhythm section’s fleeting yet ingeniously affecting “tutelage n’ fuselage” (feel free to liberally smash me now!).
 
Centrally, the bass and rhythm guitars ascribe to somewhat of an arid and controlled, albeit highly efficient, workman like ethos which, combined with the vocalist's knack for maniacally wistful choral gesticulations, readily brings to mind SoCal’s fluidly crunchy and melodic “Holy Grail”, whilst the mounting flourishes of neo-classicist leads easily compare to those of Canadian “NWOTHM” stalwarts Skull Fist (who are actually sitting tight on full-length number three). In fact, the cleanly ripping solos nearly place the diligent guitar duo in the same league as household name virtuosi comprised of Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, and, to a less popular but unfaltering extent, Italy’s Alessio Berlaffa.
 
If I’ve yet to fully crank your lever, consider this: much of the stridently raw and jagged material, as in the better part of the album’s jaw-dropping next-to-last number, “Tempest Returns”, boldly presages old school Savatage vibes smoothly mixed in with sly and sardonic (post-new millennium) Megadeth bombardment. Further extrapolation consists of hazardously likening the band to Floridian scapegoat Trivium, as both saliently exude a similarly poignant and melodic sing-along romanticism, however mesmeric and riveting.
 
Although I’m oblivious of past forays, full-length’d or otherwise, the seasoned and persistent, decade and a half old quintet, in this deluded (as well as certifiably tongue-tied!) headbanger’s mind’s eye, auspiciously comes across as the epitome of the fruit of a striving, hard-working band’s labors. To not only borrow, but also “lightly” modify Shakespeare’s timeless and sagacious quip, “it’s high time we give Primitai its due”!