Step Into This Reissue: Primal Scream, Screamadelica.

This week saw the release of the expansive 20th Anniversary Edition reissue of the greatest LP ever indebted to the soaring highs and devastating comedowns of early '90's house and its entailed recreational drug use. That record is and was Screamadelica, and everything from its Paul Cannell artwork to its guitar gurn hybridity has proven irrefutably timeless. Were it not for this particular musical milestone, Bobby Gillespie could afford far fewer hippy-slating hissy fits, we'd quite probably never have had to endure the likes of The Music, New Young Pony Club, Little Barrie etc. and the regal riverside town of Windsor's most revered native would be the least scandalous member of the Royal Family at any one point in time in place of Andrew Weatherall. In short if Ocean Colour Scene's drab old Moseley Shoals merited a deluxe boxset seeping out onto HMV shelves last week, Screamadelica warrants its own festival, with Primal Scream reeling the whole thing off in all its glory atop the best bloody bill imaginable. Thankfully, they're already in on Glastonbury to do just that. Hallelujah.

Delving into disc one, that tinny acoustic guitar, those honky tonk ebonies and ivories; Movin' On Up hasn't aged a day in twenty years, seamlessly blurring gospel with unashamed pomp rawk with far greater vigour than the infinite members of The Polyphonic Spree could ever muster. More spick and span than ever before, Kevin Shields and the 'Scream have rubbed up the reissue in all the right ways, Loaded in particular sounding crisper than the clearest of Worthy Farm sunrise awakenings. Then there's the gratuitous live LP experience, obfuscated in glorious cacophony by incessant audience shrieks and more blaring horns than an ATP of endless Decemberists, all imported in from the Hollywood Palladium circa '92 and here immortalised in acetate. Currently running an invigorated lap of honour in which they're playing the record in its entirety for the very first time in their history, there's many an intriguing offcut for the less fanatical aficionado or for those that were still nigh on embryonic first time around, the off-kilter clatter of Cold Turkey indecently startling, whilst I'm Losing More (Than I'll Ever Have) is baggy, eyeball-bulging swagger at its most sensual. Then there's the farcically amusing reimagining of Iggy's No Fun that's anything but dull. Elsewhere, The Orb contort Higher Than The Sun to breaking point, refracting it through a murky gloom and Graham Massey gives Don't Fight It a minimal squelch work-out that flexes elastically, occasionally sounding perturbingly reminiscent of M People's most unabashedly jubilant moments. Screamadelica meanwhile, lifted from the remastered Dixie Narco EP is the diamond in the rough, the hidden gem amidst the heather or plethora of additional recordings, a wonky slab of bass and brass that's altogether indelible once etched onto your cerebrum. A smattering of 7" mixes all too evocative of their originals disrobe cloud nine of its silver lining, yet when a record can take you to such celestial highs, you'll be going nowhere near any such precarious edges. Primal Scream will never better Screamadelica, for Screamadelica will forever be Primal Scream. Fortunately from Gillespie's bloodshot viewpoint, few have come close to touching this supernal work.

An über edition of Screamadelica is now available, and comes with everything from turntable slipmats and DVDs to 12" LPs and T-shirts, and can be acquired here.