A curious bugger, this one. I imagine that a lot of people will feel this is a bit of letdown following 2000's audaciously raucous Xtrmntr. But, in it's own way, Evil Heat is a very Primal Scream album, with Stonesian swagger and Kid-A-style daft in equal doses, particularly on "Miss Lucifer". Once again, they're not terribly shy about revealing their influences, ("Autobahn 66", indeed...) but at least they digest those well, using them as a foundation rather than a crutch.

Bobby Gillespie seems to have calmed down a tad, which is a bit of a shame considering his near-deranged shouting on the last one, "Sick! Fuck! Fuck! Sick! Fuck! Fuck!" and all that, (he must've been pissed off about something...) though "Rise" with its lyrics about genetically engineered assassins is getting there.

Kevin Shields continues his involvement, producing the bulk of the album, and it shows, with the MBV crank factor fusing quite nicely with the Primal groove once again, in what could almost be described as a rockular variant on electroclash. Other longtime cohorts, Two Lone Swordsmen take up the controls for most of the rest. There's career anorexic Kate Moss putting in a turn on a take on "Some Velvet Morning", which comes off OK, at least it doesn't put everyone to sleep like "Star" did. When the thing isn't, err, grooving, it's doing your head in, and quite often it's doing both. Evil Heat isn't so bad, really, it's just that Xtrmntr is a tough act to follow. At least they didn't wuss out on this one.

See also:
- Stereolab Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements
- R.E.M. Monster
- Neu! Neu!