''XTRMNTR'' (pronounced "Exterminator") is the sixth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records c ...

by Scottish rock band

Primal Scream Primal Scream are a Scottish rock band originally formed in 1982 in Glasgow by Bobby Gillespie (vocals) and Jim Beattie. The band's current lineup consists of Gillespie, Andrew Innes (guitar), Simone Butler (bass), and Darrin Mooney (drums). ...

. It was first released on 31 January 2000 in the United Kingdom by

Creation Records Creation Records Ltd. was a British independent record label founded in 1983 by Alan McGee, Dick Green, and Joe Foster. Its name came from the 1960s band The Creation, whom McGee greatly admired. The label ceased operations in 1999, although ...

and on 2 May 2000 in the United States by

Astralwerks Astralwerks is an American record label primarily focused on electronic music owned by Universal Music Group. Its material is distributed via Capitol Music Group in the United States. The label was founded in 1993 and, in its early years, featur ...

. It peaked at number 3 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

. In a departure from their earlier, more hedonistic recordings, the band took a more political stance on the album, attacking government, police, and multinational corporations. Its sound is more aggressive and forceful than Primal Scream's previous output, with harsh, electronic sounds reminiscent of

industrial music Industrial music is a genre of music that draws on harsh, mechanical, transgressive or provocative sounds and themes. AllMusic defines industrial music as the "most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music" that was "initial ...

forming the basis for many of its songs. Although

Gary Mounfield Gary "Mani" Mounfield (born 16 November 1962Warshaw, AaronMani allmusic.com) is an English rock bassist, best known for being a member of The Stone Roses and Primal Scream. Career Mounfield attended Xaverian College in Rusholme, Mancheste ...

(aka Mani) joined the band in 1997 and recorded a selection of tracks on their previous album ''

Vanishing Point A vanishing point is a point on the image plane of a perspective drawing where the two-dimensional perspective projections of mutually parallel lines in three-dimensional space appear to converge. When the set of parallel lines is perpendicul ...

'' (1997), it marked the first time he shared songwriting credits with them, as well as his first full album since his time with

The Stone Roses The Stone Roses were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1983. One of the pioneering groups of the Madchester movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the band's classic and most prominent lineup consisted of vocalist Ian Brown, ...

Kevin Shields Kevin Patrick Shields (born 21 May 1963) is an American-born Irish musician, singer-songwriter, composer, and producer, best known as the vocalist and guitarist of the band My Bloody Valentine. They became influential on the evolution of alter ...

of My Bloody Valentine was seen as a "semi-permanent member" of the band around the release of the album by performing live, helping producing the album and playing on songs. The album also features contributions from

The Chemical Brothers The Chemical Brothers are an English electronic music duo formed by Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons in Manchester in 1989. They were pioneers (along with the Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, the Crystal Method, and other acts) in bringing the big beat gen ...

and

Bernard Sumner Bernard Sumner (born 4 January 1956) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer. He is a founding member of the bands Joy Division, New Order, and Electronic. Sumner was an early force in several areas, including the po ...

of New Order. The album is notable for being the final full-length release on Creation Records, with the track "Accelerator" later lifted to become the final single released on the label.

Critical reception

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 90, based on 16 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". '' NME'' magazine rated ''XTRMNTR'' #2 in its "Top 50 Albums of the Year 2000", and later at the NME Carling Awards 2001, it won "Best Album" of the year. ''

Uncut Uncut may refer to: * ''Uncut'' (film), a 1997 Canadian docudrama film by John Greyson about censorship * ''Uncut'' (magazine), a monthly British magazine with a focus on music, which began publishing in May 1997 * '' BET: Uncut'', a Black Enter ...

'', like NME, named it at #2 on their list of the best albums of 2000. Over the years, it has gathered more praise, including appearances on lists of the top albums of the

2000s File:2000s decade montage3.png, From top left, clockwise: The World Trade Center on fire and the Statue of Liberty during the 9/11 attacks in 2001; the euro enters into European currency in 2002; a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled during th ...

: ''NME'' placed it at #3 of their top 50 albums of decade list and ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...

'' placed it at #142 in its ''Top 200 Albums of the 2000s'' list.

placed it at #20 of the 40 best reviewed albums released 2000-9. In 2001, ''Q'' magazine named it as one of the "50 Heaviest Albums of All Time". Praising the production, ''

Stylus Magazine ''Stylus Magazine'' was an American online music and film magazine, launched in 2002 and co-founded by Todd L. Burns. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog. Addi ...

'' included the album on their 2006 list of the "Top Ten Best Sounding Records, 1997–Present", and later ranked the album at number 10 on their "Stylus Decade" list of the "Top 100 Albums of the 2000s". In October 2011, ''NME'' placed "

Swastika Eyes "Swastika Eyes" (stylised as "SWSTK YS" and also known as "War Pigs") is a song by Scottish rock band Primal Scream, released on 8 November 1999 as the lead single from their sixth studio album ''XTRMNTR'' (2000). The attention-grabbing title is a ...

" at #45 and "Accelerator" at #114 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years". In 2014, they ranked "Shoot Speed/Kill Light" at #190 and "Accelerator" at #497 and in their list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Referring to the 2013 update, the album ranks at number 160 in

NME's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is a 2013 special issue of British magazine ''NME'', available digitally or in newsstands on October 23. The list presented was compiled based on votes from current and past ''NME'' journalists. The list and w ...

. In 2019, the album was ranked 65th on ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

''s 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century list.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from liner notes.

Bobby Gillespie Robert "Bobby" Gillespie (born 22 June 1961) is a Scottish musician, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as the lead singer, founding member, and primary lyricist of the alternative rock band Primal Scream. He was also ...

– vocals, guitar, samples *

Andrew Innes Andrew Colin Innes (born 16 May 1962 in Glasgow) is a Scottish-born, London-based musician. He is best known for being the rhythm guitarist in Scottish rock band Primal Scream. Biography Early years While in high school in 1978, Innes was the ...

– guitar * Robert Young – guitar, programming *

Martin Duffy Martin Bernard Duffy (18 May 1967 – 18 December 2022) was an English musician who originally played keyboards with Felt and most famously with Primal Scream. Career Duffy was born in Birmingham and grew up in Rednal in the south of the city ...

– keyboards, programming * Gary 'Mani' Mounfield – bass *

Darrin Mooney Darrin Shane Mooney (born 26 April 1967, Merton, London) is an English session drummer, best known for his work with Primal Scream and Gary Moore. Mooney started playing at the age of 12 at school. Throughout his school years, he played in var ...

– drums * Jim Hunt – saxophone * Duncan Mackay – trumpet Additional musicians * Marco Nelson *

* Phil Mossman * Darren Morris * Zac Danziger * Brendan Lynch * Greg Knowles *

Gay-Yee Westerhoff Gay-Yee Westerhoff (born 14 June 1973, in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England), is an English cellist of the all female string quartet, Bond. She studied A-level music at Wyke College in Hull and holds an Honours Degree in music from Trinity ...

Keith Tenniswood Keith Tenniswood is a British DJ, producer, and remixer. He was one half of the electronic act Two Lone Swordsmen alongside Andrew Weatherall, and produces music on his own as Radioactive Man. He co-runs the Control Tower electro label with Si ...

Production *

– production (1, 2, 3), recording * Brendan Lynch – production (1, 2, 3, 11), co-production (1, 3), recording (2, 3, 11) *

– production (11), mixing (2, 9) * Adrian Maxwell Sherwood – recording (6, 7) *

Jagz Kooner Jagz Kooner (born Jagjit Singh Kooner, 1967)Companies House https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07470451/officers is an English record producer who has worked with Radio 4, Manic Street Preachers, Garbage, Infadels ...

– production (4), mixing (4), programming (7) * David Holmes – production (6, 7), co-production (6) *

Hugo Nicolson Hugo Nicolson is an English record producer and engineer, who has worked on records for artists including Primal Scream, Embrace, David Holmes, Shack, Julian Cope, and his sister, Claire Nicolson (musician) who also performs under the pseudonym ...

– production (8), co-production (8), mixing (8) *

– production (10), mixing (10) * Tim Holmes – production (11) *

Dan the Automator Daniel M. Nakamura better known by his stage name Dan the Automator, is an American record producer from San Francisco, California. He is the founder of the publishing company Sharkman Music and the record label 75 Ark. Early life Nakamura was bo ...

– production (5), mixing (5) * Andy Wilkinson – engineering (2, 9) * Jon Weiner – engineering (6) * Alan Branch – recording (6, 7)

Charts

Certifications

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Xtrmntr 2000 albums Primal Scream albums Creation Records albums Industrial rock albums Albums produced by Dan the Automator Albums produced by Kevin Shields