(from CWSY#3, April '00) / home / reviews index

Primal Scream- 'Exterminator' (Creation)

Or 'PRML SCRM - XTRMNTR', since Bobby Gillespie says that "vowels are fascist". So shouldn't he call himself Bbby Gllsp? Then they open this LP saying 'Kill All Hippies' then later have the hippy-ish 'Keep Your Dreams'. But Primal Scream have always been contradictory; having a name like a metal band when they used to make twee 60-second symphonies like the classic 'Velocity Girl'. This LP is in a different class to everything else they've done, but then, they're a different group.

In fact they've become quite a supergroup of indie/dance genii. Mani drops basslines that demolish anything he did with the Stone Roses and Kevin Shields adds so much fuzz to 'Accelerator' - the Stooges with a conscience, or at least a consciousness - that it prompts passers-by to ask if I can turn off what they think is the radio because it sounds like there's so much interference. Barney Sumner adds his trademark uplifting guitar to the closing 'Shoot Speed / Kill Light' while there's production work from fellow '80s dance bods like Adrian Sherwood and Brendan Lynch and 90s counterparts the Chemical Brothers and David Holmes, amongst others.

But all this lot haven't come together for some kind of complacent back-slapping session. On the contrary, this is the Scream with a sound that most fits their name; a raging racket against the world, one of those albums that seems loud no matter how much you adjust the volume. Bobby usually sounds stoned when he's singing, but on 'Pills' in particular it sounds like he's taken something that really didn't agree with him ( um, some kind of Pills? ) as he goes from a hard rap into the mantra of "sick, fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!" His rage is as unfocussed as that of a teenage metaller but the music is on target, first mixing beats with Gregorian chants before the acid strings come in.

It's also the most full-on version of the 'dance/rock crossover' thang - and goes even further. 'Blood Money' is dancepunkjazz like the soundtrack to a 21st century 'Taxi Driver' and Shields' remix of 'If They Move Kill 'Em' starts with the fast tribal drums as heard on his My Bloody Valentine's 'Swallow' before it builds up into, ooh, a big messy rainbow-coloured feathery beast thing.

It might not be clear exactly what has pissed Primal Scream off so much - lyrical inspiration for the title track seems to run from A Clockwork Orange to Dylan to various sci-fi shows- but by my shit, it's good to hear the product.