Primus - Conspiranoid (EP) - White Vinyl

Primus has always thrived on the fringe, and Conspiranoid, their 2022 EP on ATO Records, feels like the perfect dispatch from a band that never met a rabbit hole it didn’t want to spelunk. Three tracks, about twenty minutes, and more ideas than some bands manage in a whole album. It is their first original studio release since The Desaturating Seven, and you can hear a group that has been out on the road sharpening its knives, then coming home to carve something prickly and oddly beautiful.

The centerpiece is Conspiranoia, an eleven‑minute sprawl that starts with a lurching bass throb and never stops mutating. Les Claypool stacks rubbery riffs like unstable Jenga blocks, Larry LaLonde smears in anxious guitar color, Tim Alexander shifts the pulse underfoot with those crisp ride patterns he perfected back in the Sailing the Seas of Cheese era. The song feels like channel surfing inside a paranoid brain. Chanted refrains, cartoonish interludes, sudden squalls of distortion, then a sly little groove that pulls you right back in. Claypool has said he wrote it as a comment on misinformation and the seductive pull of conspiracy thinking, and you can hear the unease baked into the arrangement. It is funny in places, but it also twitches. Primus has flirted with long‑form epics before, yet this one moves with a proggy clarity that suits them, maybe a residual side effect of those Rush tribute tours.

Follow the Fool lands as a tight palate cleanser. After the spiked carnival of Conspiranoia, this one snaps into a lean, mid‑tempo strut, bass punching on the upbeat while LaLonde sprinkles eerie harmonics over the top. Claypool’s vocal is nasal and needling in that classic way, but there is a tunefulness to the chorus that sticks. It nods toward the punchier side of Brown Album or Antipop without sounding like retraced steps. The rhythm section keeps it taut, no fuss, no bloat, and the guitar solo darts in and out like a mosquito. It makes sense they led with this as a single alongside the title track, since it gives casual listeners a quick hook without skimping on personality.

Erin on the Side of Caution is the sleeper. It moves like a crooked waltz at first, then keeps slipping into odd angles, the band letting notes hang just a hair too long. Alexander’s tom work shines, and the whole thing has a humid, late‑night feel, like fluorescent flicker in a gas station at 2 a.m. Primus has always been great at these mood pieces, and this one earns its place by refusing to resolve the tension. By the time the last cymbal wash fades, you realize the EP has traced a full arc, from mania to a wry kind of dread.

Production is dry and present, which helps. You can pick out the grain in Claypool’s tone, that woody midrange that has made bass players squint at their settings for decades. LaLonde’s guitar sits more as atmosphere than blunt force, and when he does cut loose, it slices clean. Alexander plays with control, never overcrowding, even when the grooves swing into odd time. It is the kind of mix that rewards repeat listens on a proper setup, which is why the Conspiranoid vinyl pressing earns its keep. These songs like air around them. If you haunt a Melbourne record store or spend your weekends flipping through bins of vinyl records Australia wide, this is one to grab. And if you prefer to buy Primus records online, there are solid options for Primus albums on vinyl, including this EP, that do justice to the low end.

Reception-wise, the title track drew a lot of attention on release, in part because of its length and in part because it felt so squarely aimed at the cultural noise of the time. Critics compared its lurch and sweep to old Primus epics and to the more overtly progressive lean they have explored in recent years. Fans seemed to split in the best possible way, some looping the long track for the riffs within riffs, others gravitating to Follow the Fool as a punchy addendum to the canon. That feels right. Primus has never been about consensus. They are about that crooked grin you get when a riff turns left and suddenly the floor moves.

Conspiranoid is small by design, a sharp elbow instead of a sprawling statement. Yet it stays in the head. It is playful, a little grim, and very alive, which is all you can ask from a band that still sounds like itself while refusing to sit still. If you are already deep into Primus vinyl, this belongs on the shelf. If you are just starting, the EP works as a quick hit that points back to the classics and forward to wherever their curiosity takes them next.