Primal Scream's hallelujah chorus of a breakthrough dance track, "Loaded", may not sound very fresh to young ears these days, but when it first dropped in 1990 it epitomized the sound of a bold new era in which old-school club kids, shoegazers, and college students could unite under the common aim of getting wasted at dance parties without having to deal with the Happy Mondays. This formula earned Primal Scream a certified classic with 1991's Screamadelica, but the band, for whatever reason, seemed dissatisfied with their burgeoning reputation as rave rangers and reinvented themselves. Twice, in fact: first as Stones-influenced retro rockers on 1994's rightfully maligned Give Out But Don't Give Up, and then as a dubbed-out electronic pop band on 1997's more successful Vanishing Point.

In 2000, the band took another sharp turn, though one not quite as outlandish as their previous two, with the stunning XTRMNTR, an abrasive, industrial grinder dense with concentrated, caustic production and raging political antagonism. Aided by a bevy of celebrity producers including Kevin Shields, the Chemical Brothers and The Automator, XTRMNTR vacillated between the hyperbolized fury of political punk bands and the breathless crunch of a cavernous dance club on Halloween. It wasn't pretty, and that was the point. Yet, detracting from the impact of the music's nuclear decimation stood singer Bobby Gillespie's hit-or-miss lyrics. At times spot-on, and at others painfully cliched, his observations could either make or break the band's riotous assaults. This, of course, led to reservations, so despite XTRMNTR's moments of glory, I filed it away and crossed my fingers awaiting its follow-up. After all, Primal Scream may be known for a lot of things, but consistency of style is not one of them.

Evil Heat follows a similar course to XTRMNTR. Its anger and righteous indignation, though tweaked a bit in the post 9/11 aftermath ("Bomb the Pentagon," for fear of seeming cruelly redundant, was rewritten and retitled "Rise"), comes off largely affecting. And the band's employment of outside talents doesn't hurt, either: Two Lone Swordsmen's Andrew Weatherall co-produced (hearkening back to his work on Screamadelica), and the increasingly ubiquitous, if invisible, Kevin Shields lent at least his name, if nothing else. Unfortunately, the rather untalented Kate Moss also shows up, playing Nancy Sinatra to Gillespie's electrocuted Lee Hazlewood in one of the most off-putting remakes of "Some Velvet Morning" I've ever heard.

But the biggest detractor here is the band's lack of focus. The record is downright messy at times, even if the thick, murky quality does, in some instances, work to considerable effect. "Deep Hit of Morning Sun" builds out of simple, eerie synths into a muddle of distorted buzzes and beeps, fuzzed-out guitar, and the creepiest chorus ever to back that age-old British lyrical prosaism "shine on me." The clamor congeals beautifully, seeming like a perfect marriage of the album's diverse (and often divergent) sounds, and it's a rare moment on an album that otherwise tends to either pummel you or hold you at arm's length.

Likewise, the Krautrock-inspired "Autobahn 66" and "Skanner Darkly" (both of which unite Weatherall with his Two Lone Swordsmen ally Keith Tenniswood) are clean, nearly dreamy respites from the turgid tracks that surround them, despite the former's seeming destiny for use in a Volkswagen commercial. Interestingly, Primal Scream also include two swaggering garage-rock songs, perhaps to offset the record's preponderance of electronically manipulated noise. "City" trumps the Stoogesque roar of any current Scandinavian-flavor-of-the-month by actually doing the apparent source material justice. And the entertaining, if gratuitous, guilty pleasure "Skull X" features Gillespie's best Bob Dylan impression over a blustering rock squall.

Sadly, these songs are the exceptions. The rest of Evil Heat has forgone the creative noise collage that saved XTRMNTR from the depths of quasi-industrial whining, and given in wholesale to generic Nine Inch Nails knockoffs. I wish I could tell you that "Miss Lucifer" shared only its name with your local venue's teen goth night, or that the inadvertently hysterical "Rise" (lyric sample: "Sweet 16 dehumanized!/ Death's head factory suicide!") maintained any of its initial threat to post-9/11 National Security rather than reveling in neutered "Head Like a Hole" artificiality. I wish I never had to consider listing Stabbing Westward as a point of reference. But fate, as it just so happens, is entirely too cruel, and that goes double for Primal Scream who, at this late stage in their careers, find themselves in desperate need of yet another revision.

-Alison Fields, September 5th, 2002