Primal Scream

Now 15 years into their musical odyssey, the consistently genre-bending Scottish collective are back with their seventh studio album. There are some great moments on Evil Heat, but overall this is a disappointing album that tries to capture the raw energy of Xtrmntr and combine it with a stripped down approach to electronic pop. The heavy attention paid to the production process over songwriting results in a surprisingly flat collection of tracks that can’t seem to decide which previous album they are trying to evoke, like a retrospective collection of throwaway tracks. "Miss Lucifer” is indeed a killer single, but Front 242’s "Welcome To Paradise” from over a decade ago essentially uses the same structure. On the plus side, "City” pushes the envelope of rock and roll, and "Autobahn 66” is a good throwback to their 1991 masterpiece Screamadelica. Unfortunately, their sad cow-towing to electro-clash and noise rock make for a tough listen in the long run. It seems as if the guys are running out of steam, and the album sounds forced as a result. Even help from My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields and super-producer Andrew Weatherall couldn’t make things stick. The album even concludes with an abysmal cover of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra’s "Some Velvet Morning.” Such a shame.