This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Jangling pop, noisy garage-punk, groovy rock, chilly techno, outlandish electronica, trippy psychedelia — you never know what you’re gonna get on a Primal Scream CD. This may be especially true of Evil Heat, the Madchester madmen’s eighth album and the sequel to 2000’s mind-bending mish-mash XTRMNTR.
Looking at Evil Heat’s cut ’n’ paste cover art, you might expect an album inspired by Sonic Youth’s Sister. Inside, though, what you get is a disc that owes a greater debt to old Suicide and Iggy Pop albums. Evil Heat’s landscape is primarily a dark ’n’ sleazy netherworld fashioned from tinny beatboxes, spooky ringing synthesizers and Bobby Gillespie’s idiosyncratic whisper-to-a-yelp vocals, all swirled together into lurching grind-grooves that hypotise you with repetition and then seduce you with addictive Britrock melody. Imagine Oasis expanding Iggy’s Nightclubbing into a concept album and you’re getting warm. Now put My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields in the producer’s chair and you’re burning up. Not unlike Evil Heat.
