Minneapolis three-piece New Primals have been tearing shit up live since 2016, touring, refining their sound, scaring the shit out of people, and being all-around weirdos. If you like your music chaotic and catchy, we’ve got a treat for you today: an all-weird, all-wonderful video premiere for New Primals’ new single, “Soft Bullet”.
The song is absolutely infectious. Starting out with a dissonant, but strangely groovy guitar line, a simple snare beat and almost sassy, half-yelled vocals, it soon builds to its undeniably catchy chorus, based almost entirely on a riff. The addition of a busy bass part adds excitement, and the drums drive more here, too. New Primals halt on some chilling harmonics before launching into an atonal new riff. Up until this point, the video has seemingly been shot in one take – now, shots and angles chop and change, adding to the already jarring nature of the riff.
The video follows four seemingly unrelated people, three of them with vivid, spiked up hair and aggressively colourful eyeshadow (the band themselves), and one in a skin suit who glitches in and out. All four are frantically running, crawling or dancing through a snow-covered suburban neighbourhood, interacting with each other very little. In the middle of the song, during a slightly less driving, but still jarring riff, they come together for a brief moment and uncoordinatedly perform a dance. With the introduction of an unnerving, descending bass line, the quartet disperses again, and the camera follows one of the vivid-haired ones stumbling through the filthy grey snow residue. The song ends with a reiteration of the chorus and post-chorus, all four dancers now thrashing about maniacally. The video is strange, somewhat disturbing, but perfectly in sync with the song itself.
Video director Dom Hanft states:
‘My concept for this video was directly motivated by wanting to create a visual that best represents my experiences in witnessing New Primals in their raw, spastic live performances. I tend to veer from showcasing the playing of instruments; that aspect within a music video appeals less to me. Especially is the case when you have at your hands a wonderfully dynamic, aggressive song containing stirring, original ideas that translate so well to a short film score, as is very much the case with “Soft Bullet”. Upon witnessing this video, I want the viewer to be intrigued, a little weirded out, and mostly just excited to go out and see New Primals for themselves.’
And do you know what the really good news is? “Soft Bullet” is taken from New Primals’ upcoming debut album, Horse Girl Energy, which is out in just over two weeks! Mark March 20 in your calendar and head over to Learning Curve Records to pre-order an LP. You can also follow New Primals on Facebook and Instagram, and check out their Bandcamp, too.
