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Crimes of the Primary
Coma

Released in 2004

5.5/10

Styles
Big Beat
Lite Industrial

Song Highlights
Blastula
Fault Lines Form
Berlin

Perth electronica act Crimes of the Primary create big beat techno in the style of The Chemical Brothers, The Crystal Method and (especially) The Prodigy, with tinges of industrial making for a darker overall sound. The songs on their debut full-length Coma feature some nice crunching bass-lines, complemented by spooky-yet-simple synth melodies. The band generally go for a pulsating, fast-paced style, making their music ideal for dance floor junkies who enjoy something darker than your run-of-the-mill DJ Pseudonym, while still falling significantly short of the pure rage-fest of Nine Inch Nails.

The vocal style and lyrics are constantly pushing the "dark" aspect of the group, resulting in a barrage of spooky output, that ranges from a little tame-and-lame to downright scary. Unfortunately, the former is more evident throughout the course of the album, as Crimes of the Primary too often sound self-conscious. Rather than getting a dark band, you get a band trying very, very hard to sound like a dark band, while still falling far enough short of the mark to make it all a little embarrassing. Maybe a few more instrumentals are in order for album number two.

However, the group do manage to excel on the musical front. The racing beats and interesting synth effects are great, with enough variation from track to track to keep things interesting. While the majority of the album is comprised of generic big beat electronica, there is just enough cool stuff thrown in to save the album from sounding too derivative.

That being said, Coma is still straightforward to the point of being free of revelation. However, Crimes of the Primary pull off their dark-but-not-too-dark, big beat style very proficiently. If you can get past the too-often weak lyrics, this is a very solid debut.