Primal Scream, New Album "Beautiful Future"

by Caspar Llewellyn Smith

It is a thin line that separates authentic rock'n'roll behaviour from pantomime imitation and it's a line that Primal Scream have tottered along for the better part of 25 years. And if you've decided to squeeze into a pair of leather strides meant for someone half your age, that walk is even harder. The potential for comedy - a banana skin moment - is all too apparent.

So it is especially curious, perhaps, that the latest edition of Q magazine finds Bobby Gillespie posing with Russell Brand (an image eerily reminiscent of that same comic posing with Keith Richards on the cover of OMM36), with the two locked in debate about their Dionysian credentials. Except Gillespie is painfully uncomfortable, answering the question 'What does rock'n'roll mean to you?' by demurring: 'I dunno. Whatever I say's gonna sound fucking ridiculous.'

'Fucking ridiculous' is an adjectival phrase that could well be attached to this ninth Scream studio album. Gillespie's lyrics have always invited scrutiny and the opening title track scarcely disappoints in this area: 'Take a ride in this city and tell me, what do you see?' he sings. 'Empty houses, burning cars, naked bodies hanging from the trees...' Those who write into Heat magazine saying that they've seen Bob walking his children (named Wolf and Lux) to the park in north London might need an education in the concept of poetic licence. Unless of course later lines - 'Are you heading for the gas chamber?.... Got a noose if you want to hang around...' - are meant for them.

Still, the track itself is a saccharine confection, the sound of Primal Scream going pop again. Few bands are so adept at blasting out high octane rock'n'roll and the band's canon is littered with classics from 'Rocks' (from the generally derided Give Out But Don't Give Up) onwards. The second track, 'Can't Go Back' (with the preposterous lyric 'I stuck a needle in my arm, I stuck it in my baby's heart, she looked so hot and sexy...'), falls within that tradition. Likewise the moody 'I Love to Hurt (You Love to Be Hurt)', with guest vocals from Lovefoxxx of CSS, which calls to mind previous darker psychedelic numbers. And few Primal Scream albums are complete without a ballad, in this instance a gorgeous cover of Fleetwood Mac's 'Over & Over' (no, me neither) featuring a duet with Linda Thompson.

So far, so much the case that it's only rock'n'roll, but I like it. But if the view that each Primal Scream album is modelled on a different Rolling Stones LP holds true, then Beautiful Future could be their Some Girls, the point at which a bunch of rockin' renegades (re-)discover something akin to disco. So allied to other stompers like 'Necro Hex Blues' and the plainly daft 'Zombie Man' are cuts such as the title track, 'Glory of Love' and 'Uptown'.

This last could be one of Primal Scream's greatest moments. Of course you feel as if you can see where the disparate elements come from: there's the attitude of Patti Smith's 'Piss Factory'; some of the E'd up vibe of Spacemen 3's 'Big City'; a bassline that Mani might well have borrowed from Neil Young's 'Dirty Old Man'; a nod to Althea and Donna in the title.

In its own way, it's derivative, and also a touch silly, inviting the image of Gillespie, Innes, Duffy and co cramming themselves into a Mini in the search for nocturnal kicks, when they should be in bed with a Horlicks. And yet and yet... its hedonistic groove carries everything before it, and reminds you that 'rock'n'roll' doesn't just signify a sound (and fury), it signifies an attitude towards risk taking.

Beautiful Future sees Primal Scream still daring to live the life. Funny? Only to some.

This article was taken from Guardian.co.uk