Primal Scream - XTRMNTR
(Astralwerks)
Primal Scream's most recent album XTRMNTR was the first 2000 release that I
purchased in the year 2000. As such, it represents, to me personally, the end of the
Twentieth Century and the beginning of the Twenty-First (given that the Twentieth Century
is technically not over, but the 1900s have rolled over, the entire year 2000 is a sort of
transitional no-man's-land). In a more general sense, however, XTRMNTR
represents the sum total of every underground rock genre--including all of the cynicism,
paranoia, and self-loathing--and is a fitting summary for both the Twentieth Century and its
pop music.
Before discussing this album specifically, it is important to get some facts about Primal
Scream straight. First, they have left behind their Manchester retro-psychedelic house
music sound--this is a new Scream. Second, the line up has changed over the years to
become a sort of U.K. post-punk super-group, including the original drummer from the
Jesus and Mary Chain (from back when they were all about ugly noise), the bass player
from the Stone Roses (a better band than you think), and the legendary Kevin Shields (from
My Bloody Valentine, if you have to ask). Third, their last album, 1997's Vanishing
Point, was an insane dub dreamscape/nightmare that was easily one the best albums
released both of that year and the decade (as was the Adrian Sherwood remixed version
Echo Dek).
The best thing about late period Primal Scream is not ever knowing what is going to come
next. Not just album to album, nor even song to song, but from second to
second--anything can happen. The 1990s seemed to be all about fusion and breaking
down genre barriers. Suddenly, rock, hip hop, techno, jazz and many other musical forms
could coexist within a band. A few artists, like Primal Scream, took the various forms and
created a truly new sound, something that cannot be simply reduced to a hyphenated
category. Primal Scream's take on this is not one of harmony, but of dissonance. The
sounds just pile on, whether they fit or not, resulting in an ecstatic cacophony.
XTRMNTR, in particular, has the sound and energy of a wild metropolis moving at a
million miles an hour.
The opening track "Kill All Hippies" starts off with sinister keyboards, swirling noises, and
cryptic samples, which explode over distorted drums, robotic drum machines, nasty
sequencers, and crazy phased guitar. When the dust clears for the groove, supplied by
blown-out bass, Bobby Gillespie rants "You got the money/I got the soul/Can't be
bought/Can't be owned" and sets the tone for the album. Yet, before you have recovered
from that one, "Accelerator" kicks in, sounding like the Stooges played full volume through
the cheapest piece of shit boom box in the neighborhood, with a horrendously distorted
spaz guitar track laid over the top. The only lyric I can pick out of the mess is "It's the
future, it's the future, c'mon, c'mon." Primal Scream have come a long way from "Higher
than the Sun."
Other high points include "Exterminator," which mixes live drums, a funky, fuzzy bass,
skronking keyboards and squeaking guitars into a hip-hop vibe (in a Manchester
house-music kind of way) that makes sing-along slogans out of phrases like "civil
disobedience" and "everyone's a prostitute." Also, there is "Swastika Eyes," a nearly
straight-up techno tune except for a few beeping guitars. On that one, Gillespie sings lines
like "rain down fire on everyone" and "parasitic and syphilitic" with a jazzy, psychedelic
vibe, turning a military-industrial Armageddon into a rave. The lyrical vibe changes the
song from a lightweight party tune into a frenetic, mad rant. The hyper beats and throbbing
bass no longer propel the dancers' asses, instead they cue the synaptic misfires of the
paranoiac's fevered brain. "Blood Money" is an instrumental featuring wild jazz drums,
bleating horns, and Ennio Morricone-style guitars, all revved up until the song collapses in
on itself.
The album has its drawbacks, however, specifically that two of the eleven tracks (I have
the UK version; the later-released US version has twelve, you bastards) are essentially
filler. "MBV Arkestra (If They Move, Kill Em)" is a Kevin Shield's remix of a song off of
Vanishing Point and was originally released as a b-side on a single a couple of
years ago. Granted it fits in well here and adequately proves the genius of the unlikely
teaming of Shields and Primal Scream. The song is an overwhelming barrage of distorted
drums, thudding bass and shrieking guitars, yet all somehow made into a danceable groove.
Shields keeps uping the noise factor through the song until it peaks as a throbbing, piercing
mass. The other, though is a Chemical Brothers remix of "Swastika Eyes," which is also
available on a previously released single, and their mix is not really remarkable at all.
In the end however, the remarkable strengths of this album, both as a piece of music and as
a cultural artifact, far outweigh any of its weaknesses. Buy it now or be forced to lie about
it later.
|
