Primal Scream - Beautiful Future

there's litte or no point in comparing any new Primal Scream album to anything they have done before; the band tends to discard the past as history and feels no obligation to compete with themselves when they move on to a new venture. that said, many may be, shall we say, pleased to hear that with Beautiful Future, the boys have moved away from the "experimental" quasi-country rock sound that was Riot City Blues.

Mani, the king of all who play bass, has often expressed a wish to record all all out disco, ABBA influenced record. i am not sure if he has been saying this prior to the release of this album, but Beautiful Future is about as close as we are going to get to that or just a flat out pop album. the boys have perhaps been checking out some of the Eurovision Song Contest entries to get inspiration for this album. believe me, this is no bad thing. Eurovision converted to Screamovision is quite a class sound.

the lead single, it being the rather dazzling Can't Let Go, does not really set the tone for what you will hear on the rest of the album. it's a quality funky rock tune in itself, but the rest of the album goes more funky, less rock. a good indicatior is the proposed second single, The Glory Of Love.


in regards of outstanding tracks, i would highlight Uptown and Suicide Bomb as tracks that require your most earnest and immediate attention. featuring sparse to non-existant vocals, these two tracks highlight The Scream doing what The Scream does - devastating musical fury, with all and sundry showing that they know exactly how to make people pay attention to the noise they generate.



you can add the joys of Zombie Man to that list too, i guess. Zombie Man is a pretty decent song as-is on the album, but i think this one is destined to be grabbed by the remix gurus and transformed into something amazing. watch out for white labels of guys who tear this one apart and reconstruct it.

elswhere on the album one can find Fleetwood Mac's Over and Over get a Scream cover treatement that's as reassuringly Screamerised as every other cover the band has tackled. there's also something akin to a nod to 80's nostalgia with the track Beautiful Summer; the melody certainly makes at the least a passing nod to Bananarama's Cruel Summer. listening to the track, you get the feeling that they really, really wanted to throw in a straight out 80's pop cover on this album, not quite sure why they didn't. who knows, perhaps something will turn up on a b-side or cd single soon.......

the only down note of Primal Scream Beautiful Future is that it is, sadly, probably the only decent, above average album released thus far in 2008. everything else has just had a sound of contractually obliged, "this will do" all over it. at least this band is still making music because they want to.

again, i affilate with no website, but i have to reccomend that you purchase this album from the excellent recordstore.co.uk. it's run by music lovers for music lovers and they ship quality vibes worldwide.


be excellent to each other, but more importantly, be thankful that Bobby Gillespie walks upon the same earth as we do.................