Creation Records were without a doubt the greatest British indie label there's ever been. For 16 glorious years it was home to all the UKs most exciting indie bands. Jesus & Mary Chain (briefly), Ride, Teenage Fanclub, My Bloody Valentine, Super Furry Animals and of course Oasis. There were a few stinkers along the way (18 Wheeler, Mishka, BMX Bandits) but we'll skirt around them.But the greatest of the all Creation bands has to be Primal Scream. On Creation they released five consistently great albums. Three of these transcend greatness to become utterly sublime. Genuine 10 out of 10 classics. Well I think so anyway.It's suitably fitting that the Scream's finest moment was also the labels swan-song.XTRMNTR was released two weeks before Creation was wrapped up and therefore never really got the support it deserved. There was simply no one to work the PR. As Bobby Gillespie says in the brilliant documentary 'Upside Down: The Creation Records Story': "We got shafted, totally fucking shafted... I'd made my best record and they actually shut the fucking office a week or two after the record came out, there was nobody in the building".Unlike earlier Scream records there is no rock 'n' roll nostalgia, no feelgood anthems, no Stones-isms and no druggy bliss. Instead there is hard beats, abrasive electronica and some very, very heavy baselines.If Screamadelica was an invite to come join their party and get wasted, XTRMNTR is Bobby Gillespie and co. giving you a punch to the gut and then whilst you're down, kicking your face in. It's violent and unrelenting. Q Magazine voted it amongst the 50 heaviest albums of all time amongst the likes of Napalm Death, Slayer, NIN and Ministry. It's also Primal Scream's most overtly political album an features lyrics that rally against the government, multinational corporations, police and our 'insect' royalty.It opens with 'Kill All Hippies''s heavy synthesised sound and pounding drums, it's an angry start. It's followed by the genuinely ferocious techno-garage rock of 'Accelerator'.You know David Cronenberg film Scanners where people heads literally explode. Well I imagine that 'Accelerator' is the sound that the poor exploding-head-folk probably heard just before they popped! Put your headphones in, turn it up really loud. No, really loud. It's almost painful isn't it? The only disappointment is that it ends with a fade out and not a nuclear explosion. It's followed by the stomping throb 'Exterminator', the full-on industrial dance of 'Swastika Eyes' and the nasty dark bounce of 'Pills'.'Keep Your Dreams' is the only relatively relaxing tune on the album and could have been taken from the preceding Vanishing Point. It's quite lovely which is not something you could say about about any other other tracks on XTRMNTR. After that momentary respite it's back to discordant beat and breaks.Some of the Scream's finest moments have always come when they've been willing to let their producers take their music and rework them into something entirely new and exciting, just as Andrew Weatherall did for Screamdelica. Here the Scream hand the reigns to David Holmes, The Chemical Brothers and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields among others. It ensures that every track on the album feels box-fresh and as vital as the last. 'Swastika Eyes' even appears a second time as a Chemical Brothers remix. Unbelievable they make it even more monstrous. But the real revelation is Shield's 'MBV Arkestra', a re-working of the track 'If They Move Kill 'Em' from the previous album Vanishing Point. It was the first piece of music from Shield's for nearly 9 years and it's an ambitious psychadelic voodoo nightmare that spirals and swirls in a haze of loops and squalling noise. Sounds awful but I think it's the most out-there tracks you'll ever hear. Krautrock, Post-Rock and Free Jazz all in one barmy and brilliant track. Shame we've not heard anything new from Shield's since bar a handful of My Bloody Valentine gigs. The album ends with exhilarating final sprint of 'Shoot Speed Kill Light'.Screamadelica is the album everyone harks back to. The genre-defining million-seller that twenty years later got re-packaged, re-toured and re-bought by all us Scream fans. It is a perfect album. But to me it's beginning to sound dated, of it's time. Where are XTRMNTR still sounds as vicious and vital as it did 12 years ago.Cool album art too.(Cheers Gary for the nudge on this one)
'KILL ALL HIPPIES''SWASTIKA EYES''MBV ARKESTRA'
Tuesday 31 July 2012
XTRMNTR by PRIMAL SCREAM (2000, Creation)
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