Modern Primitive

Après un premier démo très prometteur de deux pièces paru en février 2012, le quatuor de Québec a récidivé il y a très peu de temps avec deux nouvelles pièces disponibles en téléchargement gratuit via leur page bandcamp.

Les amoureux de Built To Spill, Archers Of Loaf et compagnie se laisseront sans aucun doute charmés par ces 2 titres qui se promènent entre le shoegaze, la dreampop et le noise rock. Les pièces sont tellement bien construites et accrocheuses que vous vous surprendrez probablement à écouter encore et encore et encore …

Et encore.

- Vakarme

Self-professed shoe-gazers, dream-poppers and grunge-rockers Modern Primitive released their EP Sugar Bullet with only 2 tracks recorded. With that type of archetypal indie arrogance, you’d expect the release to be pretty damn near perfect. As a shoe-gaze enthusiast obsessed with anything early 90’s Slowdive or Ride, I must admit I was very curious about this Canadian outfit appearing out of nowhere.
By the first bar of “Halloween Curse,” I’m overtaken by a sort of blissful, nostalgic feeling up until that moment I could have only really associated with the taste of fairy floss and certain childhood memories. This sounds like lying on my University lawn smoking and drinking with my friends in the sun with a big stupid grin on my face. The guitar riffs are punchy, yet the jangly, propulsive drums and bass create a dense ball of instrumental fuzz, and the cruisy high vocals marry it well.

Apologies for the unwarranted profanity, but this is really just a great fucking song, robust and melodic, yet lazily indulgent and reckless, oh-so-lovable shoe-gaze. The structure of the song descends into a languid chaos at some point but I’m not really complaining, especially when the guys resume their earlier musical fervor, with the jubilant “Halloween Curse” chorus.

“Plastic Tone” isn’t as fun as the initial track, but it has it’s own blasé sophistication, a complementary partner in the EP. This is more the type of song you’d listen to on a Sunday morning, hung-over making bacon, eggs (and whatever else is in your fridge that day) in your kitchen. The determined bass and woolly guitar riffs mashed in with the harmonic vocals and rough clash of the drums create a really full and beautiful sound, which would be really successful in blocking out any unwanted, embarrassing memories from the night before or the taste of moldy cheese with bacon and eggs. As a roughly 3-minute song, it would make perfect radio play; terse, addictive and full of beans (magical soul-reviving ones, at that!)

Modern Primitive is a band able to retain a sense of musical ‘tightness’ while allowing a trademark “freedom of sound,” which is a quality I’ve always really admired as a music critic. They know what they’re doing in terms of dynamics, there is a perfect balance, and there is that lazy type of rock n’ roll element in the music which so many girls have creamed over since Cobain (myself included). A sparkling and unabashedly animated debut, I can’t wait to see more from Modern Primitive!

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

- Indi Music Reviewer