Primal Scream

XTRMNTR
Creation, 2000

Primal Scream opened the 1990s with one of the decade's most uplifting records, and closed it with one of the darkest. Bobby Gillespie founded the group after leaving The Jesus And Mary Chain – where he played drums and most likely picked up a few drug habits – in the mid '80s. Their first album was full of jangly guitar and psychedelic pop, before they switched gear and recorded a follow-up inspired by noisy US garage bands.

At the turn of the decade, Gillespie and co. changed wardrobes yet again and hit it big with Screamadelica, a spaced-out tribute to a drug high inspired by gospel music and dance beats in equal parts. It found a spiritual home in the early '90s "Madchester" scene led by The Stone Roses and perpetually-drugged layabouts The Happy Mondays, and became the soundtrack to millions of brain cells being slaughtered by ecstasy use.

Primal Scream spent the rest of the decade reinventing themselves on each new album, none of which lived up to critics' expectations. Then, in 2000, they released a bombshell by the name of XTRMNTR. The first track, 'Kill All Hippies', opened with a young child's voice ordering an air-strike over the kind of creepy synthesisers you'd expect to hear in a dystopian science fiction film. When the beat kicked in, it turned into a bombastic dance club hit with distorted bass guitar and an ear-splitting finale. If Satan was living on earth as a businessman with good looks and a slick car, I imagine it would be his theme song.

In terms of volume, the second song 'Accelerator' starts where the first left off – and then gets louder to the point of discomfort. It's followed by a string of apocalyptic dance tracks including 'Exterminator' and 'Swastika Eyes', a single originally released under the name 'War Pigs' and later sung as 'American Eyes' in live performances. A Chemical Brothers remix of the song closes the album along with 'Shoot Speed/Kill Light', an offering to the gods of white noise and quite possibly one of the greatest air guitar songs ever released.