Primal Scream have drifted along on the prevailing winds of fashion throughout much of their lengthy career - from sun-scorched acid-high psychedelic dreamers on 1991's legendary 'Screamadelica' to dirty, boozy retroists on 1994's 'Give Out But Don't Give Up' and the post-millennium sonic terror of their last album, the bowel-shaking 'XTRMNTR'.
So what is the Scream Team's modus operandi this time around? Well, judging by the heart-racing beats and swirling keyboards of 'Deep Hit Of Morning Sun' they're in the Berlin wastelands of Alec Empire and his Digital Hardcore tribe.
But no: 'Miss Lucifer' marries the sleazy lyrical preoccupations of the 'Give Out' era to a Depeche Mode-style electro backing and a typically anthemic Scream chorus. Although the Germanic references continue with the title of the predominately instrumental 'Autobahn 66', the music resembles The Chemical Brothers in comedown, sunrise mode, with blissed-out keyboard and guitar squalls riding over a skittering beat.
"I'll destroy everyone I've loved" whispers Bobby G on 'Detroit' and the paranoid cyberpunk of 'Rise' hark back to 'XTRMNTR's themes of all-conquering military and industrial institutions ("Multinational, life is cheap"). Unfortunately, the latter boasts a chorus that sounds like it's being squealed by an aggrieved Dalek.
The dirty harmonica of 'The Lord Is My Shotgun' comes dredged up from Hell's very own kitchen somewhere in Deep South America and 'City' forsakes the techno trappings to deliver a classic slice of rock'n'roll Scream with a sinewy riff ripped straight from the Rolling Stones' songbook underpinned by one of Mani's trademark nerve-shredding bass lines. They even manage to throw in hackneyed images like "cocaine eyes" and "garbage cans" and still send a wicked thrill of delight through the speakers. The closing 'Space Blues #2', meanwhile, proves they haven't lost their ability to do soulful, moving torch songs.
In many ways, 'Evil Heat' comes across as something of an amalgam of the Scream's many phases and, because of that, it doesn't necessarily take them forward as their work in the past has done. Having said that, it's a coherent and often riveting ride, underlining their ability to make vital, contemporary music while at the same time liberally borrowing from both music's history book and their own, idiosyncratic past.
