The Endless Blockade - Primitive

by Jess Blumensheid

The day The Endless Blockade aren’t pissed, there will be no god. (Ed. note: Or there might be one.) They live up to their name by instilling extreme wrath for human trash, wasteful lifestyles, and the fear of god in every release. Such hostility allows The Endless Blockade to enclose themselves with music elitism, pretentiousness, and isolationism. But taking hostility to such an extent is potentially counterproductive by inviting others to share the same distaste for humankind and love for powerful music.

Irrationalism Uberalles
Thick Skin, Transparent Blood
Perfection

Primitive (20 Buck Spin, 2008) explodes in severely acidic rage. The album slabs together a mash of coarse power violence, splintering harsh noise, and commanding power electronics. The Endless Blockade evoke the loathsomeness of Man Is the Bastard and the throbbing fast-slow-fast construction of Crossed Out. In particular, the rasping blastbeats and rapid riffs in “Irrationalism Uberalles” share similarities with those of Crossed Out’s “Crown of Thorns.”

With Scott Hull’s mixing touch, Primitive breathes just enough. “Thick Skin, Transparent Blood” slows things down, opening with tasty, lumbering chords. Taps on the snare warn of imminent attack; guitars then spew their guts through projectile vomiting. Such wrath mirrors the Nietzsche quote in the liner notes:

All idealists imagine that the causes they serve are significantly better than the other causes in the world; they do not want to believe that if their cause is to flourish at all, it needs exactly the same foul smelling manure that all other human undertakings require.

The band lectures similarly in “Perfection” and “Do Not Resuscitate.” In the former, deafening static accompanies snippets of religious discourse. Amid violent power electronics, the song hisses, “Man understands divinity like a dog understands electricity.” Such words truly bring home The Endless Blockade’s discontent with our ignorance.

Buy:
The End
20 Buck Spin