On this three-track EP, prog heroes Primus tackle the culture of misinformation that bubbled up into the socio-political landscape and mainstream discourse in the years following the release of 2017’s The Desaturating Seven.
With a wink and a tongue in cheek, the aptly titled Conspiranoid pokes fun at various conspiracy theories and beliefs related to society, politics, and the pandemic, set against swirling, mind-bending psychedelic prog explorations, most notably on their longest song to date, the over-11-minute title track. That paranoid nightmare is followed by the funky, elastic “Follow the Fool” and the characteristically wacky “Erin on the Side of Caution,” the most sonically hard-edged offering on the set.
While not essential, it’s an interesting diversion from their main catalog material. — AMG
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…Les Claypool revealed the inspiration for the EP in an interview with Consequence, saying that it “sprouted from a seed I had planted in my notebook a year or so ago—a few lines commenting on the mental state of the contemporary world.” It was inspired by what Claypool perceived as a growing divide between people, caused by “disinformation, misinformation, warped information, and flat-out fairy tales being perpetuated by anyone with a slight hint of web design aptitude.”
Primus had initially intended to make the follow-up to The Desaturating Seven, but were not interested in writing an album’s worth of material, due to time constraints. Instead they began writing a single, initially with the idea of creating a “long, winding, bastard of a song”, twenty minutes in length. This song became “Conspiranoia”, and with a length of eleven and a half minutes, it is the longest song Primus has ever recorded. In addition, the band finished an existing track “Follow the Fool” as well as the newly written “Erin on the Side of Caution”, the latter of which was also based on writings from Claypool’s notebook.