Primal Scream

Vanishing Point (Reprise)
by Chris Adams

I’m sure that there are a lot of good things that can be said about leather pants, Jack Daniel’s, and driving rusty old Chevys down the backstreets of Memphis at 80mph. However, using them as icons to glamorize some sorta rock ‘n’ roll death wish is not only old-hat – it’s pretty fucking embarrassing. These days, being a rock ‘n’ roll casualty is no longer cause for martyrdom, it’s merely unoriginal. When Stone Temple Pilot Scott Weiland’s drug problems make the news, it’s obvious OD’ing is officially uncool. When we last heard Primal Scream, on ’94’s Give Out But Don’t Give Up, they seemed hellbent on being the most embarrassing, uncool boys on the block. The LP concerned itself with retreading every tired, bloated “kick-ass raunch-and-roll” cliche in the book, and the Scream’s collective lifestyle reflected that. It was like, “look boys, if we wanted a Steppenwolf reunion, we would’ve asked for one, now wipe that vomit from your chin – you’re getting half-digested tuinals all over your red crushed velvet shirt.” Personally, I think the “live fast die young” trip is a crock, but hey, to each his own, right? Right. However, when it’s in danger of turning your once-great band – as evidenced by Primal Scream’s 1991 highwatermark Screamadelica – into merely a pasty-faced response to the Black Crowes, even the most ardent confederate flag-wavin’ breakfast-off-a-mirror rock ‘n’ roll rebel has gotta give pause and reassess.

If Vanishing Point is any indication, Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie spent much of the past three years not only reassessing, but reconstructing and redefining what he, his band, and rock ‘n’ roll are all about. And this time around, he doesn’t take the easy option, doesn’t give in to the delusion of self-destruction as romance. Vanishing Point finds the Scream eschewing retrogression, discarding the warmed-over bargain basement Stones riffs, tossing the mud-crusted bellbottoms back into the closet, and stumbling into the future with a fucked-up, Frankenstein monster hybrid of rock, dub, reggae, psychedelia, and dance music. If Give Out… was the blind-drunk, mindless party, then this is the wide-eyed hungover comedown and cleanup the next afternoon. “Burning Wheel,” the first song, lets the listener know right away that the album’s not gonna be any quick and easy fix. Sitars and tablas collide in space as an ominous low hum draws closer; something wicked this way comes. Weird effects and kitchen sink sounds skid across the speakers and fade, and just when you start thinking “what the fuck is this?” the song slowly assembles itself into a raga chime and finally, a full two minutes since you pressed “play,” you’re allowed a steady groove. Gillespie’s thin, limp vocals wander entranced within swirling, psychedelic Eastern-flavored dub, and, just as you’re about to accept it as a proper pop song, the whole thing collapses and rises into the ether again. And the sonic experimentalism just get weirder, denser, and more skewed from there. “Get Duffy,” one of the album’s three instrumentals, is probably best described as “chilled cocktail dub” and is quite possibly the only pop song you’ll hear all year that utilizes an oboe as its centerpiece. The first single, “Kowalski,” is a vicious, throbbing mindfuck, scratchy vocal samples and bizarre electronic effects buzzing all over the place as Gillespie’s urgently whispered vocals spin a sinister tale of a “soul on ice.” It’s a claustrophobic nightmare, but compelling as a car crash. Gillespie’s lyrics trade in themes of exhaustion, fear, despair, paranoia, and, most poignantly, a desire for redemption. However, that redemption is not realized until the album’s last track, where, amongst banks of elegiac synths stolen straight from Joy Division’s Closer, a hauntingly spectral, drained voice allows itself to relax and breathily admit that “it’s good to be alive.” On Vanishing Point‘s second single, Gillespie informs us that “every brother is a star.” Let’s be glad that this one didn’t burn out. Welcome back, brother.