Primal Scream Album: “Evil Heat (Limited Edition)”

Every once in a while, a new album comes along that perfectly nails the spirit of rock n' roll without bowing to the age-old guitar, bass, drums formula. Well, this my friends, is one of those. "Evil Heat" is chalk full of electronics, but shakes and grooves along like a futuristic version of the Rolling Stones with contributors from all across the musical spectrum.

With glitter and sas, Primal Scream delivers a sonically blistering testament to living and partying hard, only to wake up, shake it off, and start all over again. "Miss Lucifer" is trancey and pulsing and sounds almost as dangerous as anything The Jesus and Mary Chain ever recorded. Speaking of the JAMC, Jim Reid moonlights as lead vocalist on the slamming and slivering "Detroit," delivering a bucket full of piss and vinegar irreverence. Without warning, Robert Plant (yes, THAT Robert Plant) handily lends his sensual blues harmonica gymnastics to the distorted, techno breakout "The Lord Is My Shotgun." Although the Scream rarely rely on guitars, "City," featuring Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, proves that they can kick out the jams with the best of 'em. Featuring a rip roaring chorus, it's sure to blow some eardrums. Droning, sexy, and exuberant, Evil Heat is a truly underrated document as Primal Scream deftly embodies the dark side of Rock n' Roll.

Pretty basic stuff covered in electronic fuzz. It's cool sounding but not that challenging musically. But they do build on this basic bedrock with additional electronic layers and tangents which are kinda trippy. The songs themselves are rather repetitive. "Rise" and "Miss Lucifer" are particularly lukewarm and monotonous. A bit tired really. And the lyrics are pretentious and just try too hard to be cool, but still, they're easy to ignore.

Many will no doubt like the repetition and other aspects I'm criticising. Jim Reed of Jesus & Mary Chain sings on "Detroit" and, although that band made surf music with heavy guitar distortion (the early stuff at least), a lot of their music is basic, simple chord progressions (although my fav album of theirs HONEY'S DEAD has a lot more going for it). Anyway, if you like that band you might go for EVIL HEAT even though it's basically electro.

Things get better starting with "The Lord Is My Shotgun" which is cool and subversively intense. Robert Plant of all people blows some harp on it. None of this album is as good as Kevin Shields' My Bloody Valentine, but he contributes some cool acid-wash guitar to EVIL HEAT. And "Some Velvet Morning" and "Skull X" get a bit more musical, too.

Pretty good album, not bad, but not great.

Several years have passed since XTRMNR, and now that Evil Heat has finally arrived, it doesn't feel quite as vital as it's predecessor. XTRMNR was a great album with some truelly jaw dropping moments such as Swastika Eyes, Accelerator and Shoot Speed/Kill Light. All classic songs, all produced and mixed in ways that sounded fresh, and their greatness seemed to surface after repeated listens. Like the album before that, the underated Vanishing Point, it was a real grower.

As for Evil Heat, well, there are scarceley any tracks on here that will be as awe inspiring as anything off those two albums. Obviousley, thats not the point. Primal Scream have always been about pushing the boundaries in music which climaxed with XTRMNR, and now that their duty has been done, they have every reason to pay tribute to themselves and to the music they love best- rock n' roll.

You could say that with each album the Scream have tried to capture a certain spirit in music, and with this, the spirit is rock n' roll. What makes this tribute so different and the reason why it actually works is because Primal Screams' (or mainly frontman Bobby Gillespie's) taste in rock n roll music is of the unique, real and uncompromised variety rather than the obvious (Oasis emulating the Beatles this is not). The result is a very dirty, sleazy and angry sounding record (not unlike the Stooges). There are tracks on here that are far more aggressive than anything on XTRMNTR (such as Rise, Detroit, Skull X and City) so if your worried that Primal Scream have wimped out, then think again.

Whereas XTRMNR had a well rounded set of songs with proper lyrical motivation (politics, the corruptancy of capitalism, the suffering of youth in the new world order) some of these feel like unfinished mixes of songs with no lyrical vitality that could have been so much better. The sonic envelope has still been pushed, but the melodies and deep substance of the songs is sadly missing (other than a few notable exceptions like Deep Hit of Morning Sun, Skull X and Space Blues #2). Still, a Primal Scream only half trying is far more intresting than any modern tradional rock band giving everything they've got and trying to be different, and Evil Heat...

Primal Scream remains one of the most enduring and changing bands of the early Manchester sound. CD highlights (for me): Autobahn 66, Detroit Rise, Skull X, MIss Lucifer. Their emphasis on the dark beats and fuzzy guitars comes even more to light with the addition of Kevin Sheilds (My BLoody Valentine) and Jim Reid (Jesus and Mary Chain). The cd holds together quite well and the sense of pounding, danceable rock-etronica is what makes Primal Scream so great. When they are not channeling heroin era Rolling Stones and American 70's funk or Ride with fuzz boxes they are being purely P. Scream and that's a great thing. This cd has a continuity and a pace that lifts the dreamy side of My Bloody Valentine into a kind of psychedelic dance tract party disc while holding as both atmospheric and dance. What a blast! And this is what has always made Primal Scream such a great ensemble, that they can translate the Rolling Stones with gospel grooves to Chemical Brothers with soul. This is the way that rock and roll should evolve, and as rock and roll Evil Heat works as car music, work music and party music. This is a must have to any collection of the British dark wave and Manchester sound.

And the DVD? Enjoyable and lively. Nice to see closeups of all the guitar work. Kowalski is OK but studio version is much better, other than that it's what you would expect of them live. I just wish that there was a bit more charisma or that unknown something that would have been able or is able to push them over the top. This is one of the best Brit bands along the lines of Ride, Rolling Stones, Stone Roses, Cure (early work), Chameleons UK, My Bloody Valentine (without the daydreaming), Happy Mondays (on a good day), Electronic, the Echo And The Bunneymen side project Electrafixion, Johnny Marr Band, even some Stooges and MC5!, Tin Machine, then onto parts of Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method and Prodigy. So many bands, so much music, and Primal Scream touches on them all with the wild abandon of a music fan and a band in love with music. What more could you want from a group that loves music and loves to make music? Just wish that they could capture more attention in the US.

Some critics dismissed Evil Heat as a repeat of Primal Scream's techno-metal opus

. That's partly fair: Evil Heat basically sounds like a collection of XTRMNTR B-sides. Like most B-sides, these songs reuse ideas from the earlier album and either oversimplify them entirely (in the bad moments), or bring out particular aspects that were less prominent before (in the good moments).

The best of the good moments is the first track "Deep Hit Of Morning Sun," which surely belongs on any list of top Primal Scream songs. Although

was still officially a member of the band when Evil Heat came out, only a couple of songs on it sound like he might have contributed, and this is one of them. It's a glitchy, droning guitar mire with a chillingly paranoid vibe. For once, Bobby Gillespie's weak voice actually sounds completely in its element, as he does his best disembodied moan on the chorus. XTRMNTR buried these queasy soundscapes under noise and break-beats, but they're mighty effective as the focus. The layered guitar drone is a Shields signature, but it's much more rhythmic and moody here than anything on

.

The album might have been really fascinating if it had focused on this sound. Unfortunately, it switches gears frequently. Sometimes it sounds like it's going for an XTRMNTR-like aggro-dance approach, which unfortunately sounds very underwhelming the second time around. See, the great thing about XTRMNTR was that it was fully credible as a techno album, with modern and highly sophisticated beats. But this level of detail is absent from Evil Heat. "Miss Lucifer" and "Rise" are extremely simple, with stomping 4/4 beats and two-note alternating synth lines, sounding exactly like a rock band with a drum machine.

You can always tell when Primal Scream run out of ideas, because they always fall back on imitating the

and

. Late in the album, there are a couple of songs ("City" and "Skull X") that are very similar to "Medication" and "Motorhead" from

. Somehow they were able to integrate their blues-rock fixation with their dance leanings on

, but not since then. On Evil Heat, these two songs sound out of place and make the album sound incoherent, as a B-side collection might be.

Still, let's try to be positive: there are also a couple of songs that explore the murky drone of "Deep Hit Of Morning Sun." One is "The Lord Is My Shotgun," which has a similarly weird and queasy vocal, backed by more off-kilter drones, as well as an outstanding harmonica part. More electronica bands should use the harmonica, it can sound really cool when distorted. The other noteworthy song is a cover of

"Some Velvet Morning." The latter is a real surprise. It's a duet with Kate Moss, who cannot sing, so it really shouldn't work...yet it does. Her weak voice is saved by the echoing production, which deliberately muffles and distorts her vocals. This creates a spaced-out, unreal feeling in the chorus, which is a great match with the elastic bass line and the understated dance beat.

Things are rounded out with the requisite pair of instrumentals, "Autobahn 66" and "A Scanner Darkly." Both are decent, though not as impressive as "Blood Money" or "MBV Arkestra." They are produced in a very clean, streamlined way, without the dense layering of the aforementioned tracks. On the other hand, the melodies in "A Scanner Darkly" are quite pretty, with an effective build-up of background synths, making for a nice head-nodding track.

I find Primal Scream to be really inconsistent. Of their many albums, only Screamadelica and XTRMNTR really come together, in my view, and should be enough for casual fans. But if those albums intrigued you enough to go a little deeper, Evil Heat is the next step, thanks to the original sound explored in "Deep Hit Of Morning Sun" and a few other songs.