Album: Primal Scream

Evil Heat, Columbia

An exhilarating blast of what Bobby Gillespie has accurately described as "electronic garage-band future rock'n'roll", Evil Heat occupies a space roughly equidistant between the blissed-out acid-house crossover rock of Screamadelica and the angry agit-rock ofXTRMNTR. The latter's rabble-rousing calls for civil disobedience are, admittedly, largely absent – as is the track title "Bomb the Pentagon", a symbolic incitement rendered tactless by history – but there's a residual knot of political discontent in the disparagements of modern life barked out like bullets by Gillespie in the retitled "Rise", a boiling cauldron of noise stirred by Mani Mounfield's aggressive bassline.

"Rise" is one of several tracks mixed by Kevin Shields, reclusive éminence grise of My Bloody Valentine, whose touch is evident in the attention paid to each strand of guitar noise making up the incessant, pounding barrage of a track such as "Skull X": individual yet indivisible, they're combined to create a riff of compact structure but enormous strength. The result is like a cross between the early Joy Division of A Factory Sample and the Velvet Underground of White Light, White Heat.

Counterbalancing the blasts of hard-core guitar rock is a strain of electronica that reaches its apogee on the lovely "Autobahn 66", a minimal techno piece produced by Andrew Weatherall, backroom boffin behindScreamadelica. As the title suggests, it has the nonchalant grace of Kraftwerk, with simple synth melodies layered over a hissy hi-hat drum pattern, while Gillespie sings about the dreamlike nature of driving. Proving that politics and druggy dream-states can co-exist, a similarly beatific manner underlies the opener, "Deep Hit of Morning Sun", an electronic mantra streaked with contrails of psychedelic guitar, and the lumbering instrumental "A Scanner Darkly". Between those extremes is a clutch of tracks whose varying blends of rock and electronics invite comparisons to garage-band pioneers such as Suicide, Gary Numan, PIL and (whisper it) Sigue Sigue Sputnik, while the urgent "City" careens along like "Suffragette City" refitted with a "Silver Machine" engine.

The heralded duet between Gillespie and Kate Moss being mysteriously absent from my promo copy, the most prominent guest slots on Evil Heat involve the Jesus and Mary Chain's Jim Reid, declaiming in suitably surly style about being "brought down in a broken home" on "Detroit", and Robert Plant, whose fiery blues-harp wailing blisters the slow-rolling, electro-blues surface of "The Lord Is My Shotgun". It's just one of a string of standout moments on an album whose 10 tracks clock in at just over 38 minutes, but that by no means leaves one feeling short-changed.