From the outside,
Primal Scream seem suitably chaotic, flitting between noise-skronk explorations and dub operas, but there's one truism that applies to the bulk of their career: if they delivered a good album last time around, they'll stumble on the next. More Light, the messy, candy-colored, psychedelic opus they delivered in 2013, found the band at something near their best, so it only follows that 2016's
Chaosmosis would be something of a mess -- and it is, only in an unexpected fashion. Similar to how Evil Heat represented a diminishment of
XTRMNTR -- the back-to-back highlights
Vanishing Point and
XTRMNTR being the exceptions that proves the
Primal Scream rule --
Chaosmosis finds the band scaling back its predecessor, narrowing its vistas so drastically it often seems as if the group cobbled it together on an old Casio. Often, there's a hint of something intriguing here -- a rhythm that starts to kick, a texture that seduces -- but these elements aren't developed; they simply lie there, pulsating in neon.
Primal Scream can summon enough skill to turn this kaleidoscope of color into something resembling pleasing background music, but the cloistered aggression of "When the Blackout Meets the Fallout" and jazz overtones of "Golden Rope" make it clear that electronic easy listening was never
Primal Scream's intention. That's just where
Chaosmosis happened to end up. [
Chaosmosis was also released on LP.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine