Primal Scream: Evil Heat : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Their songs are often melodically marginal and lyrically second-hand, but Primal Scream records always sound radical. Since the mid-Eighties, Bobby Gillespie and the band's changing membership have assumed different styles with the premeditated abandon of a teen-pop idol: Sometimes these U.K. poseurs flaunt tunes and grooves to go with their rebel postures (1991's classic Screamadelica, '97's under-appreciated Vanishing Point), and sometimes they don't (large stretches of everything else). With studio assistance from My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, Evil Heat drones and bawls in the techno-punk mode of 2000's Xtrmntr. Yet on Heat the deepest cuts gently burn, particularly the psychedelic opener "Deep Hit of Morning Sun" and the forlorn closer "Space Blues #2." And as always, Primal Scream's sonics remain as thick as their hooks are slim.

BARRY WALTERS
(RS 911 – December 12, 2002)