Primal Scream – Xtrmntr – Review

Primal Scream

Xtrmntr (Creation)
by Lex Marburger

Although they’ve been around for 15 years, I can never remember any singles from Primal Scream. I know that’s bad of me, but nothing ever seems to stick. That may change with Xtrmntr (pronounced “exterminator,” natch), which is a rather natural blend of ’80s post and ’90s technology-obsessed techno-tinkering. For a start, “Kill all Hippies” takes a surgically-distorted bassline and layers mellotron & samples on top of it, laced with dance floor phasers and Gang of Four drum beats. “But what about guitars?” you ask. Ha ha! “Accelerator” goes way back to Stooges-era guitar heroism (that is, cranking out a riff like a broken machine, unleashing all the potential a bar chord can have), and then over mixing it to the point of brain damage, courtesy of Kevin Shields… Now we know what he was doing between My Bloody Valentine records, he was adding 1000 tracks of distortion and guitar to this one. But it’s worth it. Sloppy & messy, just the way I like it. The obvious single, “Swastika Eyes,” has been remixed by the Chemical Brothers, but doesn’t really add anything new to the stew, but that could be said about the entire album, I guess. I mean, they could be anticipating a post-punk resurgence, when punks started learning how to play their instruments, or they could’ve never left. Either way, the addition of electronics certainly updates the sound, and there’s plenty here to keep a listener interested, strung-out instrumental jams (“Blood Money”) to mellow ambient-pop (“Keep Your Dreams”) to blistering guitar punk (see the above “Accelerator”). Works for me.
(www.creation-records.com)