by Mark Allard-Will
"Primate Centurion" is a powerful title that conjures up juxtaposed mental imagery of the tools of war imposed against the stark depiction of man's devolution to basal instinct and that's exactly what Saskatoon Metal band, Despite The Reverence, were aiming for when they dropped their latest single on Wednesday March 17th 2021.
The single, the aforementioned "Primate Centurion", saw release on YouTube in a bid to build up promotional awareness in advance of their upcoming album, the band's fifth full-length studio release. The album, currently untitled, is being finessed and finished in the studio at the time of publication of this article; so we caught up with guitarist, Johnny Fast, to find out more about the latest single and upcoming release.
Despite The Reverence
MARK: Johnny, thanks for joining us. How are things going toward the next album? And what's with Primate Centurion, what's in a name?
JOHNNY: We are currently in studio preparing our 5th Album and just released the first single from the upcoming album, "Primate Centurion". This album was started with the idea of technology and artificial intelligence slowly erasing the need for human population. Primate Centurion is sort of a play on the Planet Of The Apes concept but also with the thought of evolution of human species and our quest to destroy each other through war and eternal conflict. The pandemic of Covid followed the already forming songs and concepts between this next album and really poured gas onto the fire that was the ideas and song writing and suddenly there was an abundance of ideas to draw from.
Primate Centurion cover art
M: I could hear a lot of really awesome influences in the new single from the Cliff Burton style bass intro through to some Groove Metal and some Lemmy style grit in the vocals. What are your influences as a band? What musicians do you really look up to for what you do?
J: We always describe ourselves as progressive Groove Metal and, though we have many influences which range between each band member, we consider the music style like a blend of Tool and Pantera. There are definitely some Black Sabbath hints in our music as well.
M: You've hinted at a 2021 album release to follow this single in the coming months, what can fans expect from the album and do you have any further details you could share with us?
J: This next album will be our greatest. Every song is not like the next in many elements, but they still fit really well together. As the guitarist, I have tried to really push my skills and composition to never take the easy route and all interesting elements into everything. Tom, our lead vocalist, is really pushing himself to write outside of the box, reading different material to inspire new ideas. It's easy to get locked into repetitiveness and we are striving to break new ground. This album will have it all from "Primate Centurion", which is a more Hard Rock, early Tool sound, to "Thinning the Herd" which pushes a breakneck speed resembling some blend of prog Thrash Metal, to a quieter acoustic piece called "Fears of Our Fathers". We are really excited for this one and plan to leak a couple more singles out over the summer and fall before the full album release.
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Primate Centurion can be listened to on YouTube, right here. Alternatively, it - along with three of the band's four prior albums - can be found on Spotify. To support the band financially, you can buy digital downloads, including hi-fidelity lossless files, of the band's back catalogue from their Bandcamp, right here.