Primal Scream: More Light

When Primal Scream announced their Screamadelica tour, one decade on from their dark masterpiece XTRMNTR, you couldn’t help feeling deflated. After 2008’s misfiring Beautiful Future, the creative well seemed dry, and here they were returning to the early ‘90s ecstasy haze. The Scream have been many things over the years: nostalgic was never one of them – unless it was for a time when Mick Jagger wasn’t quite so leathery!

Thankfully, the five years away from the studio seem to have reinvigorated them. Tenth outing More Light is as fresh and engaged as they’ve sounded in years, with Belfast producer David Holmes deserving a large slice of the credit. His production could be viewed as ‘kitchen sink’, with saxophone, strings and robotic funk all making appearances, but it reinstates the band as sonic adventurers. Guitars become orchestral as a Kevin Shields tsunami arrives from the off and Holmes employs a trademark Balearic flourish here, some free jazz there.
Guitarist Andrew Innes described the record to me as “strange psychedelia”, whilst Bobby Gillespie notes a transition from bad times to a better place. That narrative works. What isn’t so successful is the singer’s political sloganeering. ‘2013’ explodes, but at its centre is a reedy vocal, a hook pinched from Wild Cherry, and right-on lyrics that don’t sound quite right. The album is long at 70 minutes, and the choir-backed closer of ‘It’s OK, It’s Alright’ is more ‘moving swiftly along’ than ‘Moving On Up’. When they give in to introspection and experimentation, however, things fly far better. Robert Plant yelps in that earthy-yet-mystical way of his on ‘Elimination Blues’, while ‘Goodbye Johnny’ mixes Lee Hazlewood and Jonathan Richman, complete with Vox tremolo. ‘River Of Pain’ is an early highlight.
The epic pay-off is reached when ‘Relativity’ locates a sweet point between XTRMNTR’s abrasive jolt and Screamadelica’s sedated drift. In many ways, More Light is located somewhere between those twin peaks. Still, it’s good to see that they’re back in the same range.

Key Track: ‘River Of Pain’