Shaven Primates are no strangers to their attempt to destroy the algorithm. They had achieved a unique sound when I heard them for the first time with Child of Dirt. Cut to a few years later, and they give us something else to worry about with Birds Aren’t Real. We are staring down the canon of this wretched algorithm with their latest EP, Kill the Algorithm. Let’s thank the stars that sludge rock requires so much human interference.
Saviour is the opening track and is easily your ticket to this rollercoaster, along with gnarly riffs, energetic vocals, and the drive that can cut through an entire data centre. Shaven Primates, in the traditional terms, are round and loaded for bear. I absolutely love the dynamics on the track; the bass line deserves a special round of beer on me. Everything in this song is a complete and entire decorated middle finger to software like Suno AI. You can never predict the direction, heat, or intention of where the sounds will pivot or turn.
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If you thought the same mixture was what you were going to get throughout the album, boy, were you wrong. Pioneer Way has the kind of prog-style percussion. I just couldn’t place my finger on it. That’s what made it all the more exciting—zero predictability. Mark and Nick are on their own wavelength, and that’s where everybody benefits. If you ever hope to catch them live, this is the song you should enter the hall to listen to. The chorus drives like a turbocharged car, banking on all that tempo that was built up during the verse.
What is sad about the next song is that it reflects more about me. Just next to this writing tab I have a LinkedIn page open with a list of jobs I want to apply to. It says Feed, the same as the title of this song. Instead of adding salt to that wound, Shaven Primates gave me a riff I could head bang to so hard the tab left in shame. It reminds me of the sludge metal band The Sword with their dark drop-D riffs and mythical topics. Instead here it’s about something so real I’m in genuine doubt if this opinion is my own or if it was doctored into my mind by a couple of content hijackers.
Talk about a tempo and feel change when it comes to the final track Kill the Algorithm. There is a certain atmosphere of hope, something we could use a lot of in these trying times, that comes through after all the aggression and rage delivered on the past three tracks. Shaven primates do not disappoint at all. In the past two years it’s almost as though they have looked at every part of the algorithm that is slowly destroying us and written something that encapsulates it all. I think the title speaks for itself:
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