Brand new EP from Shaven Primates

Since forming in Oxford in 2017, Shaven Primates have been making an impression with a sound that blends dark wave, art rock and post punk stylings. Their music is driven by slick guitars, robust basslines and a combination of retro and modern synths, creating a sound that can feel equally familiar and subtly unsettling. Within the arrangements however, is an emotional examination of fear, love, anger and anxiety, all transformed into songs that offer a way of confronting difficult ideas through sound.

Led by vocalist Mark Elphinstone, the band’s identity is closely connected to his own journey; after stepping away from music for 17 years, Mark returned with a desire to turn painful chapters of his life into musical expression. That decision ultimately became the catalyst for Shaven Primates, giving the band an emotional framework that continues to inform its sound today. The Velvet Underground, Kate Bush, Tool, Prodigy, Yes, The Clash, David Bowie, Porcupine Tree and Pink Floyd all form part of the band’s musical landscape, allowing the band to move between styles while retaining a powerful sense of character.

The project first arrived publicly in 2021 and unveiled their highly original sound with the debut single “Child of Dirt,” followed by an album of the same name that mapped out their ability to combine ambitious ideas with gripping musical arrangements. Further releases expanded that world, including the EP Birds Aren’t Real and 2024’s three-track Chasing The Dragon. Now, Shaven Primates return with their latest and perhaps most confrontational release, the brand new EP titled Kill The Algorithm. Across the new fourr-track EP, the band strides further towards hard rock and punk, tinged with traces of modern art rock and its central concerns of anxiety and control appear in different forms throughout the songs.

Opening with “Saviour,” the EP frames the impulse to look outside ourselves for someone or something capable of fixing what feels broken. Drawing on 90s sounds and influences from Placebo, Nine Inch Nails and A Perfect Circle, the track also incorporates elements of grunge and thrash metal. Flowing with pulsing bass notes, twanging guitar textures and driving drums, the contrast between biting riffs of moody tone and airy vocals casts a truly immersive and transportive listening experience from start to finish.

“Pioneer Way” takes a more playful route into anxiety with a song originally penned around guitarist Tom’s everyday frustrations, the song developed into an exploration of his rants about the sudden desire to place flags on lamp posts and roundabouts. Its anger draws from the Sex Pistols and the spirit of late-70s punk, turning irritation into something louder, enthralling and more deliberately provocative. Propelled by bouncy drums, intricate lead guitar flickers and rolling percussion capped by expressive vocal performance, it’s an angsty anthem that’s energising and catchy in equal measure.

With “Feed,” the band shifts its focus towards the exploitation of insecurity among young men by addressing people who capitalise on male strife, particularly by convincing inexperienced young men that they must adopt a particular image or behaviour to find relationships. Forming with the burst of rock energy, the track simmers down with stabby bass tones and jangly guitars as delicate vocals hover above before the arrangement surges with charging intensity to deliver an epic alternative rock outing that’s at once engaging and thematically profound.

Then comes the title track, “Kill The Algorithm,” where the EP’s wider concerns with anxiety reaches its most direct expression. Shaven Primates takes aim at social media algorithms and the ways they can repeatedly expose young minds to increasingly extreme material. Inspired by Radiohead, David Bowie and Joy Division, the song questions the consequences of a digital environment capable of reinforcing propaganda, manipulation and harmful ideas, wrapped up in a engrossing rock sound that bends between intricate verses and rousing choruses, offering a thrilling collision of prog vibes, potent punk impact and meaningful songwriting.

Across Kill The Algorithm, Shaven Primates never treat the subject matter as detached theoretical problems, they present music that comes from frustration, observation and real experience, giving even their most provocative ideas an emotional charge. The band’s latest chapter has led them towards a harder, more riveting sound while the central philosophy that music can be a place to confront what frightens, angers or unsettles us remain entirely intact. With Kill The Algorithm, Shaven Primates embrace that ethos without compromise, resulting in four sharply defined pieces of alternative rock that mark their return in spectacular fashion.

Listen to Kill The Algorithm below