Everything reverberates with Primes’ “Millions”

A few weeks ago, my daughter Vanessa and I were having another conversation about age, time and tide. How the collection of experiences one gathers as they careen wildly through this life can widen a person’s perspective if they are really paying attention, and how, in the overall scheme of things, this is a benefit with a particular downside. As she has begun her own experience-collection, she’s started to notice how I often sorta fake laughter at the things she finds to be positively hysterical, and she more or less called me out on it. I had to explain that, as I’ve become older, I’ve heard and seen and read so much that fewer and fewer things surprise me, because so much that is “new” is an echo of something I’ve already experienced somewhere else.

As I listened to Millions by Primes, a grrrl-fronted trio from Brooklyn, NY, I thought about that conversation. These recordings are primal stuff: Guitar, bass and drums accented by Sleater-Kinney style vocals, a style that could’ve easily been a simple reverberation of Pauline Murray’s delivery when she was leading Penetration, an English band that found themselves near the front lines of punk rock in 1976. “Millions”, the title track and opening salvo, quickly barges into a wholesale lifting of the riff from The Stooges “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog”, the band whose track “Penetration” was the inspiration for Pauline Murray’s aforementioned band. While I am distracted by all that, Vanessa could care less. It’s a killer riff that is totally new to her. “Drive”, the track that follows, does sound fresh to me and the vocal interplay between Primes guitarist Jackie Bodley and bassist Kate Revitte is urgent. “Hot Blood” is a terrific rock and roll mood swing.

Millions is only six tracks, which makes me think that these folks are just getting started. These recordings are alright. I already wanna hear some more.