Primals All Love Is True Love

The Primals (Darkest Hour, Dead To Fall) prep LP, playing LA w/ The Sonics & other dates

The Primals

John Henry is best known as the frontman of DC metalcore/melodeath vets Darkest Hour, but he’s now also fronting a new band called The Primals, which also includes Chad Fjerstad (former bassist of Illinois metalcore band Dead To Fall) and Andrew Black (drummer of now-defunct Boston punks The Explosion), and which sounds nothing like any of the members’ other bands. Their debut album All Love Is True Love, which comes out September 7 via Southern Lord, was produced by punk/post-hardcore legend John Reis (of Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, Rocket From the Crypt, etc), and going by the two songs that are out from it, it kinda sounds like a mix of ’90s Foo Fighters and Torche. Lead single “Fortune & Sons” has at least a little of John Henry’s scream in the mix, but mostly he shows off a melodic singing voice, and he’s pretty damn good at that too. The just-released “Pity City” hardly has a trace of metal at all. Listen to both songs below.

The Primals have just a few dates coming up, including album release shows in LA, DC, and Brooklyn, followed by a Power of the Riff kickoff party in LA, where they’ll be opening for garage rock legends The Sonics.

The Brooklyn show happens 9/15 at The Safari Room at El Cortez (tickets). All dates are listed below.

Darkest Hour also have a four-night East Coast run this November with Damnation A.D., Cemetery Piss, Walk The Plank, and No Man, that kicks off in DC, and hits Baltimore and Philly before wrapping up at Brooklyn’s Kingsland on 11/16 (tickets). All Darkest Hour dates are listed below too.

Primals All Love Is True Love

Tracklist
1. Hello Cruel World
2. Dead Predators
3. Another World to Call Your Own
4. Pity City
5. Fortune & Sons
6. The Wayward Impaler
7. It’s Personal
8. Together Whenever
9. Save Me, Baby
10. I’m Coming Home

The Primals — 2018 Tour Dates
09/07 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hi-Hat *
09/14 – Washington, DC @ The Pinch #
09/15 – Brooklyn, NY @ El Cortez Safari Room ^
11/17 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo %

* = record release show w/ Prissy Whip, Death Crux, Fraude, DJ Tuna
# = record release show w/ Despite Despair, Rat Infested
^ = record release show
% = The Power of The Riff kickoff party w/ The Sonics

Darkest Hour — 2018 Tour Dates
11/13/2018 U Street Music Hall – Washington, DC
11/14/2018 Baltimore Soundstage – Baltimore, MD
11/15/2018 Voltage Lounge – Philadelphia, PA
11/16/2018 The Kingsland – Brooklyn, NY