Scream wages war on mediocrity

The transition into the new year has occurred without so much as murmur, and all of the pre-millennial paranoia that prompted many to seek refuge in their basements, packing away canned goods and firearms in preparation for the apocalypse, seems a little silly in retrospect.

Imagine, just for a second, what the world would be like if all of our machines really had failed, if our computers went haywire, our electric power shut down and our cellular phones exploded. Roving bands of vagabonds are strewn across Mad Max-esque landscapes of urban rubble and whatever dilapidated nightclubs still exist among the mess are undoubtedly playing Primal Scream's latest album "Exterminator" (spelled a vowel-less "XTRMNTR" on the album's cover).

"Exterminator" is the sound of social claustrophobia and technological dependency escalating to such a perilous degree that everyday machines turn against themselves and self-destruct. In traditional Primal Scream fashion, it is both a rock 'n' roll and a dance record, but its songs resonate with such dissonant tension that it will prove to be extraordinarily challenging for fans of either genre.

With "Exterminator," Primal Scream don't attempt to escape from modernity or to expose its underbelly, but opt rather to wage war upon it. It is angry and subversive, a riotous condemnation of global imperialism, pseudo-democracy and consumer culture that is bitingly relentless in its attack.

Aiding Primal Scream in battle is a think-tank of some of the brightest musicians and knob-twisters around, the list of which includes The Chemical Brothers, New Order's Bernard Sumner, The Automator (previously known as Dr. Octagon), My Bloody Valentine head honcho Kevin Shields, Death in Vegas' Tim Holmes, and dub legend Adrian Sherwood. While the opening track "Kill All Hippies" is as menacing as its name implies (check out the killer bassline courtesy of ex-Stone Roses bassist Gary "Mani" Mourfield), it in no way prepares the listener for the total mayhem of the following track "Accelerator." The band was wise to entrust mixing duties of the song to Kevin Shields, whose treatment of guitar feedback with his missing-in-action My Bloody Valentine is the stuff of legend. "Accelerator" is a Stooges-inspired rave-up that is sure to piss off your neighbors. Imagine a spaceship careening through an asteroid field at warp speed, crashing continually along the way until the whole thing explodes in a white-hot ball of flame - and then keeps going. Just as the chorus sets in with Gillespie screaming "hit the accelerator" and you think your speakers are starting to max out, Shields turns up the volume again and blows the roof off the place. You have been warned.

The hypnotic dub of the title track "Exterminator" swings into play like an uneasy and post-apocalyptic take on The Clash's "Know Your Rights." Amid the chanted chorus of "no civil disobedience," Gillespie rants poetically about such lovely ideas as "septicaemic interzone psychic distortion" and "claustrophobic concrete English high-rises."

Next up is the album's first single "Swastika Eyes," a straight-ahead techno number in which Gillespie tackles the issue of U.S. global imperialism. Illustrating the "illusion of democracy" that he feels is promoted by U.S. overseas military affairs, Gillespie suggests that we exist under the "Swastika Eyes" of a hidden totalitarian regime. All that and its great for dancing too.

Shields pops up again behind the mixing board for the album's finale, "Shoot Speed Kill Light," a song that also features New Order's Bernard Sumner. With his guitar pyrotechnics and the Peter Hook-esque perpetual motion bass line, the track is a superbly crafted homage to Joy Division and Can-era krautrock that buzzes with so much energy that it nearly explodes beyond its own brilliance.

While "Exterminator" is marred by a small amount of filler, it contains enough great moments to constitute it as the best album of 2000 thus far and one of the most challengingly innovative records in recent memory. In these media saturated times, in which The Backstreet Boys win Grammy awards and our lives are indundated by mindless television sitcoms, it is nice to see that anarchists like Primal Scream are still around to keep us updated. Like Bob Dylan, The Clash and Public Enemy before them, Primal Scream has produced a vital portrait of modern society that is as riveting sonically as it is politically. Somewhere, Noam Chomsky is smiling.