No chance of pipe or slippers
PRIMAL SCREAM
More Light
Ignition Records/Inertia
REVIEW SIMON COLLINS
4 stars
More than 30 years into their career and now on to their 10th album, you could expect Scottish psych-rockers Primal Scream to get out the pipe and slippers.
No chance.
For More Light, the lads enlisted Belfast club DJ turned soundtrack composer David Holmes (Ocean's Eleven, Zoolander and Hunger) for one of their most ambitious, diverse and cinematic albums of their, at times, messy lifespan.
The first tastes in the swaggering rock of 2013 and lead single It's Alright, It's OK - which harks back to 1992 classic Movin' On Up - shoehorn a baker's dozen tracks that veer from face-peeling mod-pysch (Sideman) and wall-of-noise punk (Hit Void) to trippy almost narcoleptic meanderings (Walking With the Beast).
The stomping opener of 2013 merges into River of Pain, the most psychedelic offering which transforms into a Hollywood orchestral daydream five minutes in before returning to the gentle Middle Eastern beats.
Rock shaman Robert Plant contributes backing vocals (really!) on Eliminating Blues, while David Meltzer's beat poetry is laid over a loose garage rock boogie on the excellent Turn Each Other Inside Out.
One minute Bobby Gillespie is spitting lines, such as "living like a refugee in your own country", like a rapper over Culturcide, the next he's crooning "I love this city" over the horn-laden pop rock of Invisible City.
Step into the light.
