Primal Scream’s last album, 2013’s More Light, felt like a victory lap: after reinventing their sound countless times over the preceding decades, here was Bobby Gillespie and gang showing everything off for the cameras. So it’s understandable that the band seem unsure where to go next. Chaosmosis is caught between another attempt at reinvention – this time as a slightly lightweight synth-pop outfit – and replicating More Light’s greatest hits approach. Opener Trippin’ On Your Love has some of Screamadelica’s wistfulness – and is as cliche-ridden as the title suggests – but it’s followed by Feel Like a Demon Again, in which icy chords slice malevolently through its chorus. Elsewhere, there are dreary ballads (Private Wars) that run into sparkling pop (Where the Light Gets In, featuring Sky Ferreira) only to be bulldozed by skronk-addled XTRMNTR techno (When the Blackout Meets the Fallout). Coherence is not this album’s strong point, then, but it all hangs together – just.
