Primitive Knot: Every Star A Dying Scream

(self-released)

CD/DL/Streaming

Out Now

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Our Score

Primitive Knot unleash the intensity with Every Star A Dying Scream. Andy Brown screams into the riff-filled abyss for Louder Than War.

The first thing you notice is that incredible cover. The artwork breaks rank with the black & white industrial fare usually found on a Primitive Knot release and hits us with some bright – slightly unsettling – flower-laden psychedelia. The image sits somewhere between horticultural body horror and ecstatic transformation. A dream sequence and a nightmare all in one. Chris Williams – the man behind the riffs – has made countless albums, yet – from the cover to the content – Every Star A Dying Scream still feels remarkably fresh.

Broken Code lowers us into the heart of the machine as we’re slowly submerged in glitchy sci-fi electronics. It’s very brief but adequately sets the mood. The album is full of these short, gloomy and decidedly ominous instrumentals. The Great Unravelling then kicks things into gear with an appropriately primitive bombardment of malevolent metal. The production – it has to be said – is superb: every vicious riff, drum machine thwack and gruff vocal hitting like a ten-tonne truck.

The music and lyrical themes are distinctly dystopian yet unnervingly apt for the modern age. Oppression, atrocity and existential dread all swirled into an abyss of heavy, down-tuned riffs. The album isn’t razor focussed on one particular issue, rather the horrific debris of recent years has simply seeped into the songs. What we have here is the ideal soundtrack for a burning world.

While it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, it’s hard to not admire a song title like Elegant Declensions of Serialised Atrocities. “We built this city on trigger warnings,” roars Williams over the overpowering onslaught. Honestly, this stuff makes NIN sound like a pop group. Urban Tomb Cosmic Void – as well as being another straight-up banger of a track title – somehow manages to go even harder. Perhaps it should go without saying but this isn’t the sort of album that really works as background music.

Mass Deportations of the Entitled is just under two-minutes of crackling static and subtle dread. These tense little pieces are the closest we get to any sort of respite. With a title nodding towards Ken Russell, (Salome’s) Last Dance is an insanely urgent and impossibly intense escalation. The riffs, drums and vocals all reaching newfound levels of brain-rattling brutality. There’s a feeling of ever-escalating mania that really drives the album forwards. Williams fully committed to the metallic madness. “The illusion of choice/ The fantasy of rebellion,” he growls on the bleak but exhilarating rush of Under the Iron Heel.

The Government Listened to Our Concerns and Encouraged Our Worst Impulses invokes the race to the bottom that seems to define much of the current political landscape. The track itself sounds like some sinister, stray transmission. The sound of a Geiger counter scanning a nuclear-ravaged hellscape. At times, these apocalyptic intermissions make it feel like you’ve inadvertently stumbled into the audio equivalent of terrifying 1984 TV drama Threads.

The vocals are on point throughout: imposing, powerful and occasionally delving into a guttural death metal growl. Said vocals are damn-near demonic on the excellent, Accelerating History is the Rhythm of Oppression. “The more we engage, the less we connect,” he snarls as the track pummels us into pâté. The Weight of Unspoken Decrees then proceeds to reverse over us like a sonic steamroller. Nasty riffs and relentless rage…the ideal antidote to whatever nonsense Elon Musk has been spouting.

Using a phrase borrowed from punk visionary Jamie Reid, A Brick Will Do the Trick is a short, squelchy instrumental that buzzes like a broken radio. Much like Justin Broadrick, you can really hear Williams’ love of droney, industrialised soundscapes. Never one to go out with a whimper, Knot finishes us off with the existential terror and obscene savagery of the title track. “EVERY STAR A DYING SCREAM” he bellows as we’re finally swallowed by the void. Oblivion never felt so good.

There’s plenty to be angry about at the moment but few have captured that rage as viscerally as Primitive Knot. Every Star A Dying Scream is crammed full of fantastically filthy industrial metal delivered by a man that sounds like I feel whenever I switch on the news. And you know what, I feel a damn sight better after listening. Stop doomscrolling and come scream into the abyss.

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You can find Primitive Knot on Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram and Bandcamp.

Chris Williams/ Primitive Knot has also released new music this year as Daast, Cromlech and as a collaboration with Salford Electronics. All available on Bandcamp.

Cover art by Strange Creature Collages | Instagram.

All words by Andy Brown. You can visit his author profile and read more of his reviews for Louder Than War HERE.