Album Notes

"We previously discussed Orange County, Calif.-based indie rock sextet Primitive Painters here in early 2005 (we regret saying its music was "a bit wimpy" -- if we had a do-over we'd say something like "heart-on-sleeve"). Now that there is news of a new full-length from the act, let's review: Primitive Painters recorded a really great demo called Dirtclods in the early '90s that sounded like the atmospheric British guitar rock of the day injected with a bit of SoCal punk energy. The band caught the ear of UK label GT's, and rerecorded the stuff from the demo, added some more stuff, and released a debut that was also called Dirtclods. This led to some confusion for us when we upgraded from our cassette dub to CD a couple years ago. We were puzzled upon receiving the CD that the songs sounded different, and it turns out our cassette was the demo, which we learned a couple years back when we pinged singer Dennis Crupi. Primitive Painters broke up in 1997, but Mr. Crupi and founding bassist (and now guitarist) Patrick Homa reconstituted the act in 2002 with a clutch of new players. Around the same time the band was named one of the 129 greatest bands from Orange County and released the short set EP33. Its new collection, Say It 'Til You Mean It, was self-released earlier this month, and while we have only heard what's posted at Primitive Painters' MySpace hacienda, we feel pretty comfortable saying its best stuff is even better than the best old tunes. Where the Dirtclods demos were fairly spare, the production on Say It 'Til You Mean It is lush, in places particularly imaginative, and there are tons of big guitars and bigger melodies. The updated Primitive Painters sound is reminiscent of "Regret"-era New Order, although obviously without Peter Hook's trademark bass noodling. Anthems like "Harm" and the New Order-referencing "Throw Your Heart To The Wind" establish a new beachhead for Primitive Painters. The sextet celebrate the release of Say It 'Til You Mean It with a show Dec. 6 in Fullerton, Calif."

--Clicky Clicky Music Blog, 11-17-08