Che a chara
2nd December 2009, 06:32
Anyone a fan of this amazing band ?
XTRMNTR is, imo, their best album. It can be described as anti-fascist and anti-government.
Here is some reviews that give you the idea of the concept and sound of the album, i think it would appeal to a lot on here:
From allmusic . com (can't yet post links, but type in "primal scream" and go to discography and click on XTRMNTR)
Whenever indie music seems lost in its own self-righteous, unchallenging, inoffensive fundament, Primal Scream rides in to try and save it all. So just as Screamadelica tried to encapsulate the importance of ecstasy culture, or Vanishing Point tried to exorcise their own insanity, here XTRMNTR is a nasty, fierce realization of an entire world that has also lost the plot. The album starts with a gloriously vindictive sample of a kid commanding "Kill All Hippies," and this roughly states the album's modus operandi. There are songs shouting with furious, feedback-splayed anger ("Blood Money," "Exterminator"), songs of club-based revolt (both house-influenced versions of "Swastika Eyes"), and songs of utterly manic desperation ("Accelerator"). The album only lurches when lead singer Bobby Gillespie's weedy vocals can't keep up with the black noise of the music. "Insect Royalty" meanders and mumbles with a blank approach. "Pills" is a half-realized hip-hop song, with Gillespie diminishing its power on every verse (it only saves itself when it caps the song off with the album's central theme: "Sick f*ck f*ck sick f*ck f*ck sick f*ck"). Thankfully, Scream's highs, such as the gentleness of "Keep Your Dreams" (sounding like the third sibling to 1991's "I'm Coming Down" or 1997's "Star"), as well as the inversely monstrous and apocalyptic "MBV Arkestra (If They Move, Kill 'Em)," shower down with purely visceral poise. The album is not the flawless statement against complacency the band seemed to strive for, but it succeeds at tearing heads off, shooting fascists, and quickly asking questions later with unbelievable fury. For these reasons alone, it easily serves as one of the band's highest marks. These aren't the aggro-simpleton maneuvers of bands like Rage Against the Machine or Korn; the implosive production and sheer political belief prove that ingenuity must come hand in hand with "statement" if an idea is to come across effectively. XTRMNTR is simply a protest -- sonically as well as lyrically -- and maybe this would be a fine time to once again rally behind something worthwhile.
From Bestbuy .com:
Release notes:
Primal Scream's XTRMNTR is a wild burst of raging, full-on, glorious noise, as funky beats meet distorted rock guitars head-on, united by the inimitable, agitated vocals of front man Bobby Gillespie. This album is all the Primals' previous incarnations thrown into a blender and mixed with a splash of free jazz, with production credits from the Chemical Brothers and David Holmes.The follow up to 1997's VANISHING POINT, XTRMNTR is a far more aggressive album. It ranges from the cynicism of the opening track "Kill All Hippies" ("You got the money, I got the soul"), to the intense ranting of "Pills" and "Swastika Eyes" ("all jails are concentration camps, all judges are bought"). But despite the evident aggression, XTRMNTR isn't lacking in color. "Blood Money" features some wonderfully jazzy brass over the top of a driven bass line, while "Keep Your Dreams" is laid back, dreamy and reflective. XTRMNTR is a blazing, top-notch album, both terrifying and magnificent.
Editorial reviews:
Rolling Stone (5/11/00, p.131) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...A sober, brutally visceral experience....This is one ball of aggression that hangs together, thanks to the band's smarts and funk. Just call XTRMNTR the BATTLE OF LONDON."Entertainment Weekly (5/19/00, p.74) - "...Mixes thunderous big beats and red-alert synth squalls into a loose concept album that rails against political oppression and other evils....the U.K.'s most adventurous pop band-turned-white-noise addicts." - Rating: B+Q (7/01, p.90) - Included in Q's "50 Heaviest Albums of All Time".Q (1/01, p.93) - Included in Q's "50 Best Albums of 2000".Q (3/00, p.110) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...a darkly uncompromising and often difficult record: uneasy, sinister and, in layman's terms, a bloody racket....anyone with the first notion about rock'n'roll will catch thye whiff authentic mayhem here....as avant-garde as the mainstream gets..."Alternative Press (11/00, p.144) - Included in AP's "10 Essential Political-Revolution Albums"Alternative Press (5/00, p.75) - 4 out of 5 - "...a Baskin-Robbins shop that makes 31 flavors of amphetamine sulfate instead of ice cream: each flavor is totally wired and totally tasty..."Magnet (1-2/01, p.45) - Included in Magnet's "20 Best Albums of 2000" - "...Hypnotic, frenzied songs...reinvigorate tired pop standards and introduce a new world order..."The Wire (1/01, p.34) - Included in Wire's "50 Records Of The Year".CMJ (1/08/01, p.17) - Included in CMJ's "Best of the Year" for 2000.CMJ (5/00, p.67) - "...They've ratcheted up the intensity quite a bit this time around....loud, kinetic bass and keyboards, a menacing mix of abrasive squeals, block-rockin' beats and post-'Blue Monday' electropop..."Mojo (Publisher) (p.59) - Ranked #65 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "[A] harsh marriage of pounding electro and speaker-blowing punk rock..."Mojo (Publisher) (2/00, p.87) - "...a continuation of that sub-basement tapes attitude, frayed memories of revolutionary music...crafted into a rare kind of discordant anti-pop malevolence....Brutal, aggressive [and] subterranean..."NME (Magazine) (12/30/00, p.77) - Rated #2 in NME's "Top 50 Albums Of The Year [2000]".NME (Magazine) (2/14/00, p.44) - "...obligatory, heavy, urban and set out to take the strain of a world at war with itself. Their finest music since SCREAMADELICA set an early high-water mark, and in dealable quantities, there was even jazz, too. Trrfc."
From Amazon .com:
Primal Scream's XTRMNTR is one of the most intense and innovative politically charged musical diatribes since the MC5's 1969 debut. Approaching electronic, funk, and alt-punk-based sounds with equal ferocity, this is arguably the band's finest record yet. The over-the-top brilliance of "MBV Arkestra" (a seven-minute, Kevin Shields-saturated noise fest) alone cannot be exaggerated. Really! --Mike McGonigal
From Amazon .co .uk:
It's seldom that a band's sixth album is their best, but Exterminator is nothing less than a radical new dawn. Only a few years before, Primal Scream seemed spent--a smack-addled joke, numbing the pain with the idle comfort of rock & roll cliché. Exterminator is the Scream's baptism of fire--an album with a righteous social conscience, it rages against apathy and injustice with all the funk-fuelled indignation of Sly & The Family Stone's There's A Riot Goin' On. Musically, too, Exterminator is shackled together with a coherence that's eluded them since 1991. From the tense industrial trance of "Swastika Eyes", to the scurvy-thin hip-hop of "Pills" and the exultant Krautrock of "Shoot Speed Kill Light", one minute the 'Scream are diseased and desperate, the next they're basking in glorious, righteous euphoria. Thank the guests, certainly--the Chemical Brothers, New Order's Bernard Sumner, My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields--but when you hear Bobby Gillespie screaming "from here to where?", on the hyper-distorted pedal-to-the-metal drag-race of "Accelerator", you'll know he's the one with the road map to a terrific rock & roll future. --Louis Pattison
============================================
Anyone on here have any thoughts on the album ?
XTRMNTR is, imo, their best album. It can be described as anti-fascist and anti-government.
Here is some reviews that give you the idea of the concept and sound of the album, i think it would appeal to a lot on here:
From allmusic . com (can't yet post links, but type in "primal scream" and go to discography and click on XTRMNTR)
Whenever indie music seems lost in its own self-righteous, unchallenging, inoffensive fundament, Primal Scream rides in to try and save it all. So just as Screamadelica tried to encapsulate the importance of ecstasy culture, or Vanishing Point tried to exorcise their own insanity, here XTRMNTR is a nasty, fierce realization of an entire world that has also lost the plot. The album starts with a gloriously vindictive sample of a kid commanding "Kill All Hippies," and this roughly states the album's modus operandi. There are songs shouting with furious, feedback-splayed anger ("Blood Money," "Exterminator"), songs of club-based revolt (both house-influenced versions of "Swastika Eyes"), and songs of utterly manic desperation ("Accelerator"). The album only lurches when lead singer Bobby Gillespie's weedy vocals can't keep up with the black noise of the music. "Insect Royalty" meanders and mumbles with a blank approach. "Pills" is a half-realized hip-hop song, with Gillespie diminishing its power on every verse (it only saves itself when it caps the song off with the album's central theme: "Sick f*ck f*ck sick f*ck f*ck sick f*ck"). Thankfully, Scream's highs, such as the gentleness of "Keep Your Dreams" (sounding like the third sibling to 1991's "I'm Coming Down" or 1997's "Star"), as well as the inversely monstrous and apocalyptic "MBV Arkestra (If They Move, Kill 'Em)," shower down with purely visceral poise. The album is not the flawless statement against complacency the band seemed to strive for, but it succeeds at tearing heads off, shooting fascists, and quickly asking questions later with unbelievable fury. For these reasons alone, it easily serves as one of the band's highest marks. These aren't the aggro-simpleton maneuvers of bands like Rage Against the Machine or Korn; the implosive production and sheer political belief prove that ingenuity must come hand in hand with "statement" if an idea is to come across effectively. XTRMNTR is simply a protest -- sonically as well as lyrically -- and maybe this would be a fine time to once again rally behind something worthwhile.
From Bestbuy .com:
Release notes:
Primal Scream's XTRMNTR is a wild burst of raging, full-on, glorious noise, as funky beats meet distorted rock guitars head-on, united by the inimitable, agitated vocals of front man Bobby Gillespie. This album is all the Primals' previous incarnations thrown into a blender and mixed with a splash of free jazz, with production credits from the Chemical Brothers and David Holmes.The follow up to 1997's VANISHING POINT, XTRMNTR is a far more aggressive album. It ranges from the cynicism of the opening track "Kill All Hippies" ("You got the money, I got the soul"), to the intense ranting of "Pills" and "Swastika Eyes" ("all jails are concentration camps, all judges are bought"). But despite the evident aggression, XTRMNTR isn't lacking in color. "Blood Money" features some wonderfully jazzy brass over the top of a driven bass line, while "Keep Your Dreams" is laid back, dreamy and reflective. XTRMNTR is a blazing, top-notch album, both terrifying and magnificent.
Editorial reviews:
Rolling Stone (5/11/00, p.131) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...A sober, brutally visceral experience....This is one ball of aggression that hangs together, thanks to the band's smarts and funk. Just call XTRMNTR the BATTLE OF LONDON."Entertainment Weekly (5/19/00, p.74) - "...Mixes thunderous big beats and red-alert synth squalls into a loose concept album that rails against political oppression and other evils....the U.K.'s most adventurous pop band-turned-white-noise addicts." - Rating: B+Q (7/01, p.90) - Included in Q's "50 Heaviest Albums of All Time".Q (1/01, p.93) - Included in Q's "50 Best Albums of 2000".Q (3/00, p.110) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...a darkly uncompromising and often difficult record: uneasy, sinister and, in layman's terms, a bloody racket....anyone with the first notion about rock'n'roll will catch thye whiff authentic mayhem here....as avant-garde as the mainstream gets..."Alternative Press (11/00, p.144) - Included in AP's "10 Essential Political-Revolution Albums"Alternative Press (5/00, p.75) - 4 out of 5 - "...a Baskin-Robbins shop that makes 31 flavors of amphetamine sulfate instead of ice cream: each flavor is totally wired and totally tasty..."Magnet (1-2/01, p.45) - Included in Magnet's "20 Best Albums of 2000" - "...Hypnotic, frenzied songs...reinvigorate tired pop standards and introduce a new world order..."The Wire (1/01, p.34) - Included in Wire's "50 Records Of The Year".CMJ (1/08/01, p.17) - Included in CMJ's "Best of the Year" for 2000.CMJ (5/00, p.67) - "...They've ratcheted up the intensity quite a bit this time around....loud, kinetic bass and keyboards, a menacing mix of abrasive squeals, block-rockin' beats and post-'Blue Monday' electropop..."Mojo (Publisher) (p.59) - Ranked #65 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "[A] harsh marriage of pounding electro and speaker-blowing punk rock..."Mojo (Publisher) (2/00, p.87) - "...a continuation of that sub-basement tapes attitude, frayed memories of revolutionary music...crafted into a rare kind of discordant anti-pop malevolence....Brutal, aggressive [and] subterranean..."NME (Magazine) (12/30/00, p.77) - Rated #2 in NME's "Top 50 Albums Of The Year [2000]".NME (Magazine) (2/14/00, p.44) - "...obligatory, heavy, urban and set out to take the strain of a world at war with itself. Their finest music since SCREAMADELICA set an early high-water mark, and in dealable quantities, there was even jazz, too. Trrfc."
From Amazon .com:
Primal Scream's XTRMNTR is one of the most intense and innovative politically charged musical diatribes since the MC5's 1969 debut. Approaching electronic, funk, and alt-punk-based sounds with equal ferocity, this is arguably the band's finest record yet. The over-the-top brilliance of "MBV Arkestra" (a seven-minute, Kevin Shields-saturated noise fest) alone cannot be exaggerated. Really! --Mike McGonigal
From Amazon .co .uk:
It's seldom that a band's sixth album is their best, but Exterminator is nothing less than a radical new dawn. Only a few years before, Primal Scream seemed spent--a smack-addled joke, numbing the pain with the idle comfort of rock & roll cliché. Exterminator is the Scream's baptism of fire--an album with a righteous social conscience, it rages against apathy and injustice with all the funk-fuelled indignation of Sly & The Family Stone's There's A Riot Goin' On. Musically, too, Exterminator is shackled together with a coherence that's eluded them since 1991. From the tense industrial trance of "Swastika Eyes", to the scurvy-thin hip-hop of "Pills" and the exultant Krautrock of "Shoot Speed Kill Light", one minute the 'Scream are diseased and desperate, the next they're basking in glorious, righteous euphoria. Thank the guests, certainly--the Chemical Brothers, New Order's Bernard Sumner, My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields--but when you hear Bobby Gillespie screaming "from here to where?", on the hyper-distorted pedal-to-the-metal drag-race of "Accelerator", you'll know he's the one with the road map to a terrific rock & roll future. --Louis Pattison
============================================
Anyone on here have any thoughts on the album ?