Amazon.co.uk Review
After 1994's
Give Out But Don't Give Up, many critics wrote off Primal Scream as a drug-addled nostalgics, retreading lame rock clichés.
Vanishing Point, while not a return to the sun-addled acid house fusion of
Screamadelica was another voyage into the Scream's expansive mindscape. This time, however, the trip was bad. "Kowalski" heralded the album like a dark portent. Bobby Gillespie whispers bitter nothings over a distorted Krautrock groove that effortlessly melds Primal Scream's melting pot of influences--
The Stooges,
CanCan and
Sun Ra.
Vanishing Point seems propelled by demons, with the metallic funk of "If They Move, Kill 'Em" and "Stuka" providing dirty highlights--the latter threatening "If you play with fire, you're gonna get burned / some of my friends are gonna die young". It's not as essential as
Screamadelica, but
Vanishing Point finds Primal Scream at a terrifying and compelling depth. --
Louis Pattison
CD Description
After fully exploring their EXILE-era Stones fetish on GIVEOUT BUT DON'T GIVE IN, Primal Scream's fourth album, VANISHING POINT, picks up where 1991's epochal SCREAMADELICA left off. Once more, our heroes are on a quest to marry their post-Madchester garage groove to a perversely diverse electronic soundscape. On "Kowalski", multiple bass lines rumble downthe highway alongside Can-like tribal percussion, as Bobby Gillespie whispers non-sequitirs about a disappeared race-car driver. On "Star", a discourse on the modern cult of personality is bathed in wind-swept ambient pulses and Augustus Pablo's melodica, and punctuated by The Memphis Horns.
Butthe greatest of Primal Scream's gains come on the instrumental pieces. "If They Move, Kill 'Em" rocks on the shoulders of a wah-wah guitar and a thumping hip-hop beat, while an acid-house bass line, feisty brass section and sitar send a myriad of culturally diverse chills up the listener's spine. Throughout, VANISHING POINT is full of minor-but-miraculous sonic asides that make it a ride worth taking, as close to a perfect electronica-rock marriage as anyone's yet achieved.