The Scream started out in the late Eighties after Gillespie finished up with fellow Scot rockers The Jesus And Mary Chain. Since then, they’ve gone from alt-rock beginnings, through the ecstasy-fuelled Screamadelica and onto the Rolling Stones-esque follow-up Give Out But Don’t Give Up.
They then reinvented themselves as full-on electro-terrorists with a trio of fuzzed out, boundary-pushing records of full-on racket and a bristling take-no-prisoners attitude. Vanishing Point introduced a new, electro-beat based sound, XTRMNTR saw the band pushing themselves to new extremes and the ensuing Evil Heat strapped harmonies and a Kate Moss vocal cameo to the aggressive wall of noise.
Since 2006, though, they have been mostly back to rocking out with six strings, Riot City Blues single Country Girl seeing the band back in the charts with the sort of catchy tune Jagger could shake his wigglesome hips to.
They’ve never been easily pigeonholed, have always bucked the trend, and ducked expectations. Sometimes it has worked, other occasions less so (the Accelerator single was a bold but unlistenable screech of feedback).
This Mercury Prize-staged show is for competition winners only, so head on over to mercuryprize.com to be in with a chance of winning. Or hit up eBay!
The Hospital Club, WC2H 9HQ
Thursday, April 25 | Doors at 7pm | Free
Tube | Covent Garden
mercuryprize.com
Photo: Getty
