Of course, that never happened, and we're all still here asking each other how we eat our Creme Eggs and spreading our wings on Red Bull and vodka. Nevertheless, Primal Scream's mighty new platter resounds with a majestic power and stature that sees it - chaos or not - as LP of the millennium so far. And it's going to take some beating.

Bobby Gillespie and chums have tiptoed a strange path through rock's tulip field. Flirting with overblown Stooges-like rock, blissed out ecstatic dance grooves and gospel influenced introspection, he and his merry band of retrobates now unleash "Exterminator" on an unwitting public, pushing it in our faces like a glove they force us to smell. Sights still set on the dance side of rock's coin, Primal Scream forsake the flower power loved-up likes of "Screamadelica" for a collection of tracks that plug straight into the heart of the sun and suck it dry.

Things open scarily with "Kill All Hippies", a CB broadcast from a nuclear wasteland, eerie electronic beats and noises flowing in waves from their source. Optimism and hedonism are not forsaken however, and soon Bobby is singing "you got the money, I got the soul" over this scalpel sharp soundscape. Then the first of the celebrated collaborations with My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields sears out the speakers like a volcano erupting, with "Accelerator". Shields' touch on this and two other tracks ("MBV Arkestra" and "Shoot Speed/Kill Light") are the undisputed highlights of a great LP, with the bloody hand of Kevin interjecting immense swathes of white noise and distortion into already mountain-levelling tracks. None more apparent than on "Accelerator", with its crackling guitar and seismic drumbeats, the MBV-meister's mixing is a sonic enema up rock's backside and is a sinus-clearing blast of energy (mix your metaphors the HeadCleaner way).

"Exterminator" rumbles up its juggernaut thunder next, exhibiting Gillespie's own particular brand of lyrical vitriol ("everyone's a prostitute") and a bass that drops a nuclear charge into the heart of the San Andreas Fault. The Jagz Kooner mix of "Swastika Eyes" elbows "Exterminator" out the way next, and pumps with all the desperation and urgency of a slit vein. More scary Gillespie imagery ("parasitic and syphilitic") underscores a standout track that makes more sense in the middle of this LP than it did as a single.

The remarkable "Pills" pops up next, a furious melange of Gregorian chanting, spacey beats, scratching, Bobby's marvellously ineffectual rapping and a superb vocal refrain that tourettes its way through the lyrics "sick fuck fuck sick sick fuck fuck" like a bad-ass pirate's parrot. Less effective - though it does grow - is the bizarre marriage of beats and jazz that is "Blood Money", an instrumental that sounds like pissed-up cyborgs breaking into a 1930s speakeasy and shagging everything in sight.

Things are brought to a temporary lull by the gentle and mellow "Keep Your Dreams", a lullaby for the stoned and dethroned, sung by a completely blissed out and lovable Gillespie ("I believe that sinfulness can burn your soul away") over a chill-out room soundtrack that floats around your mind like thoughts you can't place. It serves as a gentle lull before the chaos descends again in the shape of "Insect Royalty", a track which again dabbles in jazz "mmmm, nice" noises, but to far better effect than "Blood Money". Brooding and threatening, it is the sound of Primal Scream getting their hands dirty in their own personal bucket of paranoia and suspicion.

Kevin Shields twiddles the knobs once more on the storming "MBV Arkestra", another instrumental that bounces extreme noises off each other in a glorious mixture of well-controlled madness and barely-supressed violence. Whilst it is fantastic Shields is producing such sonic class with the Scream, it does make me ache for a new MBV LP...(dream on). The Chemical Brothers pop round for a hand-rolled fag next, dusting "Swastika Eyes" down again and bolting on their own unmistakable relentless beats, effectively strapping the track to the back of a clockwork monkey and setting it marching off into the heart of a blast furnace.

The last track is a revelation. A right place in the right time meeting between the underground supergroup of Primal Scream, Bernard Sumner and the godlike Shields, "Shoot Speed/Kill Light" is a whirlwind of Sumner's heartbeat guitar, monotone lyrics repeating the title, sunflare screeches from Shields and production that plucks genius from the sky and forces it into a mixing desk. A perfect end to a mighty offering, "Shoot Speed/Kill Light" has that thing all great songs have - something indefinable that is greater than the sum of its parts.

In conclusion, "Exterminator" is a remarkable LP, not just for the fact it has blasted forth onto a scene filled with little in the way of true originality and innovation. Whilst other bands sit at the top of the tree with their parent-friendly paeans to the weather, Primal Scream are tearing down barricades and icons like there's no tomorrow, pissing alcohol on bonfires and demanding that they be heard.

It's gonna be a fucking good millennium.

5/5