It won the Australian Music Prize in 2008, and was nominated for the ARIA Award that same year for best rock album, but lost to The Living End's entry, White Noise.
[4] The band recorded their first song as a trio, at a vinyl pressing plant where Eddy Current (real name Mikey Young) was working at the time.
[13] The following year, on 17 August, Primary Colours was re-released on Melodic Records in the United Kingdom, in conjunction with the band's eponymous debut album.
[14][15] The lyrics on Primary Colours often focus on mundane topics pertaining to the lives of ordinary people, including watching TV and eating ice cream, while its music often features shredding power chords.
[11] According to The Washington Post's Chris Richards, the music represents a new, gentler type of punk rock in the vein of No Age and Abe Vigoda.
[16] A similar sentiment was expressed by David Bevan of Pitchfork Media, who wrote "there's a softening of edges taking place throughout, a band testing limits after having already refined them".
The song's "sharp riffs, fiery speak-sing vocals and constant forward momentum" exemplify the band's typical sound.
[17] Robert Christgau gave the album a rating of A−, which, according to him, corresponds to "the kind of garden-variety good record that is the great luxury of musical micromarketing and overproduction".
[18] Many critics also praised Current's guitar work on the album, with Richards writing that his riffs "come ripping from his amplifier like sunbeams through a smog of distortion".
[16] Writing for Spin, Chuck Eddy wrote that Current's guitar chords "soar Byrds-like or surf Ventures-like out of melodic stomps that seem basic, but aren't".
[17] On 20 March 2009, Primary Colours won the $30,000 Australian Music Prize for the previous year, defeating eight other nominees, including Cut Copy and the Presets.
[24] Eddy Current Suppression Ring told Triple J that they didn't expect their recording plans to change significantly as a result of the win, but that they might be able to do them more quickly.
[24] At the ARIA Music Awards of 2008, it was nominated in the category "Best Rock Album", but lost to The Living End's entry, White Noise.