Primal Scream, Brixton Academy

Primal Scream, who play Brixton Academy on December 11, have been together for over a quarter of a century. In that time the alt rock mavericks have explored almost every variety of rock and roll, from Screamadelica’s (1991) psychedelic groove to XTRMNTR’s (2000) politically-oriented electro-rawk to Riot City Blue’s (2006) garage sound to Beautiful Future’s (2008) disco jangle- the list goes on.

That’s because the Glaswegian band has made quite a few records—and each has its own distinctive character. It’s easy to criticise this ‘new album, new sound’ approach, but the reception of Primal Scream’s tenth LP has been different from that of albums past. In fact, critics have almost unanimously praised More Light and it’s easy to see why. The record balances a newfound coherency with Primal Scream’s quintessentially playful attitude to genre- check out the dystopian state-of-the-nation that is 2013, River of Pain’s sweeping desert-folk croon, or Elimination Blues, featuring the scintillating falsetto of Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant.

More Light is not just a welcome addition to the Primal Scream discography, it’s a necessary one. Before beginning work on the album, the Glaswegian band had been touring Screamadelica, the 1991 acid house-inflected LP that made their name. The tour made plenty of people happy, but it felt like Primal Scream were flogging old material because frontman Bobby Gillespie et al. were fresh out of new ideas. 

Having ditched the nostalgia trip, the band seem more on-the-ball, more focused, probably because, after a somewhat tortured history of substance abuse, Gillespie’s been off the drink and drugs for the past five years. And according to him, it’s this sobriety that’s responsible for the band’s reinvigorated sense of direction. 'We are trying to create transcendent, euphoric, ecstatic experiences,' Gillespie told The Telegraph. 'That’s always going to be part of our aesthetic. We like making druggy-sounding psychedelic music. It’s just that since we stopped taking drugs we got better at it.' 

Amen to that.