PRIMAL SCREAM
Evil Heat
Sony Records
· The product of having too much to dream last night.
When Primal Scream talking head Bobby Gillespie announced that the follow-up to 2000's harrowing cultural sneer XTRMNTR would be a celebration of life, many fans enjoyed a private snicker. Few, however, expected it to be such a brutally vicious party.
As the recent garage rock revival is more concerned with being chic than with breaking new ground, it’s a damned treat that the Scream returns to psychedelic bewilderment on Evil Heat. Where Kevin Shields (formerly of My Bloody Valentine) continues to completely disregard what a guitar is made to do, ghostly voices try to overcome the swarms of threatening robot locusts. The acid-house and acid-rock roots of Primal Scream’s blissed-out 1991 LP Screamadelica are still vibrating, and song titles like "Autobahn 66" only hint at the album's audacious blending of Kraftwerk blips with MC5 kicks.
Happiness gleams synthetically in every corner, though just superficially enough to allow Gillespie's barely hidden loathing to squeeze out for stale air. Still he suffers from a nihilistic torture, wanting to reject the revolting world around him while wishing he might better embrace its beauty.
The lyrics about the bombing of the Pentagon that sparked some brief controversial idiocy may be gone from the violent centrepiece "Rise," but its raging, political onslaught loses none of its snide potency. Then, on "Lord is My Shotgun," featuring the Satanic return of Led Zeppelin mutant Robert Plant torturing a harmonica, Gillespie grunts about cancerous minds, death angels and sowing some nasty seed. Wow, Bobby. That's a celebration all right.
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