Primitive Knot: Feral Codex – Album Review

Andy Brown reviews Feral Codex, the new album of industrial dread from Primitive Knot. He shares his thoughts for Louder Than War.

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but album artwork can certainly give you some clues. Just take a look at Feral Codex, the latest release from one-man industrial metal machine Primitive Knot. The image was pulled from an old anarchist ‘zine while the layout and general low-res quality recalls power electronics provocateurs Ramleh. Add some song titles like Multidimensional Genocide Unit and the possibility of an album full of chart-troubling pop anthems becomes decidedly slim. Rest easy Sabrina, there’s no competition here.

Over 51 minutes, Chris Williams – the man behind the ski mask – delivers an obscenely noisy new album. Under his Primitive Knot guise, the prolific Manchester-based musician has created an impressive discography full of Godflesh-worthy industrial metal yet here we’re presented with something quite different. The weighty riffs and Big Black-style drum machines have been melted down and distorted beyond all recognition. This is Primitive Knot in its primordial state. The sonic equivalent of William Hurt in Altered States, when he finally regresses into some screaming malformed entity.

We’re greeted by the buzz of harsh noise and a recording of an evangelical preacher raving about revelations and seven-headed beasts. “Dance/ Dance/ Dance”, Williams growls like some malfunctioning Cyberman as we’re gradually enveloped in a dark wave of sinister synths and slow, doom-laden beats. There are no riffs here, just a wall of impenetrable dread. If Damien Thorn needed a new soundtrack for 2025, then this would be it. Rumbling like a broken speaker, Satanic Rights is no less intense. The beats are more prominent and the noise even more unforgiving. “Zero tolerance for the other,” he spits like some demonic government spokesman.

Even by Primitive Knot standards, Multidimensional Genocide Unit is an angry and unsettling track; opening – as it does – with a snippet of speech from a documentary on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The lyrics are ripe with disgust as they tackle a more current atrocity, succinctly reflecting Trumps approach to the horror unfolding in Gaza: “Genocide rebranded as corporate hostile takeover.” The title itself is a reference to an IDF task force. The music – as you might expect – feels suitably hellish: mangled vocals and cold electronic rhythms accompanied by an ominous, ever-constant hum.

The familiar riffs aren’t here but Feral Codex is arguably the most brutal the project has ever sounded. Black Tantra and Love In An Unholy Place channel The Bug/ Kevin Martin with unstoppable, heavyweight rhythms swathed in thick, oily layers of industrial noise. “Psionic warfare and PTSD” wails a voice from somewhere deep inside the abyss, “Occult solutions for the feral now.” Williams would no doubt say you shouldn’t read too much into the lyrics yet even at their most esoteric, they feed into the albums oppressive tone.

Replace Yr Self is built around an anxiety-inducing pulse while the stark Terminal Zone amplifies the unease. Listen on headphones and you’ll feel like the you’re being swallowed whole by the hungry earth. The latter is certainly one of my favourite tracks on the album, something to really scare the neighbours with. With the average track clocking in around six-minute mark, everything is given adequate time and space to really get under your skin.

Feral Codex is an undeniably extreme offering, largely forgoing any significant tonal shifts in favour of creating an atmosphere of sustained and unrelenting tension. You’re not let off the hook for a single goddamn second. There are no ambient interludes here, no moments of reprieve. Riffs and song structure replaced by a sea of pure electronic terror. “Bite the hand that feeds/ Feed the hand that bites” chants Williams as the title track pulls us into the heart of the machine. Finally, The Glamour takes a wrecking ball to my ears with an impressive bombardment of beats and groaning noise.

Now, if you’re new to the Knot I wouldn’t necessarily suggest you start with this album as it abandons the signature riffs that had come to define the project. For a more riff-orientated starter pack I’d suggest listening to Undying Lands, A New Golgotha, Exit Strategies and covers album Triumph of Deaf. However, as a long-term fan – and I really can’t stress this enough – it’s genuinely thrilling to hear Williams rip up the floorboards like this. Put simply, Feral Codex takes a gamble and hits like an absolute atom bomb.

With something like 17 different projects under his belt, Williams has explored everything from dungeon synth and thrash metal to sci-fi indebted electronica. This year alone he’s released an album and an EP of ribcage-rattling EBM as Daast and a remix album with Dave Padbury aka Salford Electronics. Despite this, Primitive Knot has generally kept industrial metal and riffs at its core. With this in mind, Feral Codex feels like a real ground zero moment for project. What happens next is anyone’s guess, but that album of pop anthems is still looking pretty unlikely.

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You can find Primitive Knot on Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram and Bandcamp.

Listen to Daast on Bandcamp here.

All words by Andy Brown. You can visit his author profile and read more of his reviews for Louder Than War HERE.