HAVING DECIDED that smooth career paths are for wimps, Primal Scream have embarked on a flight of musical fancy that's wildly oscillated between brilliance (Screamadelica) and sub-Black Crowes retro cack (Give Out, But Don't Give Up).

No matter how brill 1997's Vanishing Point was, the fear is that the follow-up will be down the second-hand shop faster than you can say "weren't Man U pants in Rio?"

Thankfully there's been no sudden conversion to line-dancing, or over-riding urge to become a new millennium Emerson Lake & Palmer. Instead, the Scream Team have taken a look at what the current techno crew are doing, nicked the bits they like, and ditched the rest.

The motivation for most bands "going dance" is that they're desperate to lower the average age of their audience. In Primal Scream's case, it's because they realise that for rock 'n' roll to survive, it has to throw away the rule-book and mutate.

While not without its serious miscalculations - how many times do I have to say this? Skinny white boys can't rhyme - Exterminator weighs in as the first great album of the millennium.

From the off, it's clear that the Primals are not happy bunnies. The sort of mutant funk that George Clinton would probably favour if he was 20 years younger, 'Kill All Hippies' finds Bobby Gillespie intoning "You've got the money/I got the soul/I can't be bought/I can't be owned", over a symphonic barrage of FX.

It's easy listening, though, compared to 'Accelerator' which, with Kevin Shields in the production cockpit, sounds like a stealth bomber having engine problems.

Smelling blood, the band move in for the kill with the darkly malevolent title-track and 'Swastika Eyes', the most scaborous noise to ever vomit forth from Planet Disco. Forget dancing, the thing moves along at such a thundrous pace that all you can do is twitch. Not sure that they got it nailed down the first time, the Chemical Brothers are brought in to provide an alternate mix which rubs running orders with the Bernard Sumner-assisted 'Shoot Speed Kill Light'. It's as close to pure pop as Exterminator gets, which to be honest, isn't very.

No Primal Scream album is complete without a comedown song, and here it's left to 'Keep Your Dreams' to ease the psychosis. The message is simple: no matter how poisonous life gets, you've got to keep on fighting.

The miscalculation we were talking about earlier is 'Pills' - a spectacularly misguided attempt at urban white rap which should be put up against a wall and shot, immediately. I don't care who your hommies are, Bobby, you're not a member of the Wu-Tangs.

At least they care enough to get angry, which is more than can be said for the stadium wannabe brigade. If not quite Antichrists, Primal Scream are certainly the anti-Travis.