They Never Stopped
The veterans who refused to go quietly.
Some bands from the golden era of British and Irish alternative music never went away. Others came back. Either way, they're still here — still touring, still recording, still relevant. This is their story.
Primal Scream
Key Albums
- 01
Screamadelica1991
The masterpiece. Rock meets rave. Still sounds like the future.
- 02
XTRMNTR2000
Their angriest record. Noise, politics, fury.
- 03
More Light2013
A late-career triumph. Sprawling, psychedelic, underrated.
Start with
Loaded · Come Together · Accelerator · Country Girl
"Bobby Gillespie has spent forty years refusing to make the same record twice. That restlessness is exactly why Primal Scream still matter."
Primal Scream began as a jangly indie band, became the architects of the rock-rave crossover with 'Screamadelica' (1991), made a brutal noise record ('Give Out But Don't Give Up'), went political ('XTRMNTR'), went cosmic ('Evil Heat'), and have never once settled into a comfortable middle age. Bobby Gillespie is constitutionally incapable of making the same record twice.
'Screamadelica' remains one of the greatest British albums ever made — a record that dissolved the boundary between rock and dance music so completely that it's hard to remember there ever was one. Andrew Weatherall's production still sounds extraordinary. 'Loaded', 'Come Together', 'Higher Than the Sun' — these are not nostalgia pieces. They are living music.
They tour regularly and the live show is still an event. Gillespie prowls the stage like a man possessed. The band are tight and loud and committed. If you've never seen them, fix that.
Six Bands Still Worth Your Time
They Came Back
Not every reunion is a cash grab. Some bands come back because they have something left to say.
My Bloody Valentine
Twenty-two years between albums
Kevin Shields spent twenty-two years making 'mbv'. The result was worth every year of waiting — a record that picked up exactly where 'Loveless' left off and then went somewhere new. The reunion tour that followed was one of the loudest things ever committed to a stage.
01
The Stone Roses
The reunion that broke Heaton Park
The Stone Roses reformed in 2012 for a series of concerts that sold out in minutes. The Heaton Park shows were genuinely historic — 75,000 people per night, Ian Brown in fine voice, John Squire's guitar sounding exactly as it should. They never made the promised second album but the live return was everything it needed to be.
02
Pulp
Jarvis returns, wiser and angrier
Pulp's 2023 reunion tour was one of the most anticipated events in British music. Jarvis Cocker, now in his sixties, proved that his gift for observation and performance had only sharpened with age. The shows were extraordinary. New material followed and it was as sharp as anything from 'Different Class'.
03
Now meet who's next.
The next generation learned from these bands. Here's what they made of it.