Editorial Review:Album Description:2008 album from the acclaimed British Alt-Rockers, the 10th album by this exciting and inventive band fronted by Bobby Gillespie. Since the band's inception at the tail end of the '80s, their string of releases have continued to astound and delight their fans while also managing to be commercially successful. Beautiful Future was produced by Bjorn Yttling (Peter, Bjorn & John) and Paul Epworth (Bloc Party) and features guest appearances from Lovefoxx (CSS), Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stoneage) and Folk legend Linda Thompson. 11 tracks including 'The Glory Of Love', 'Can't Go Back', 'Zombie Man' and more. Warner.
Amazon.co.uk:Beautiful Future--a hopelessly optimistic moniker for their ninth album, no matter which way you approach it, since Primal Scream are almost universally accepted to have strutted past their zenith around the same time they helpfully mislaid their vowels (on 2000’s unrelentingly anarchic
Xtrmntr). To claim any future, especially after the all-too-brief successes of 2006’s turgid
Riot City Blues, let alone a handsome one is foolhardy to say the least. But, you see, they’re actually being cuttingly sarcastic, or so we ascertain from Bobby Gillespie’s ham-fisted sloganeering on the title track’s tirade against modern ills ('you live by the sword, you die by the sword, you’re only free to buy things you can’t afford', etc.). If anything in particular is exposed as a spent force here it is he and his pen, sense disregarded to the point of parody, words drifting like flotsam and the band’s systematic attempts to reinvent themselves. The small miracle is that they just about manage. 'Beautiful Future' leads into the album with a curious and eventually overwhelming infectiousness, gleaming like CSS delivering a Shirelles pastiche complete with cheesy bell-ringing and an effeminate vocal delivery that almost clouds over the lyrical content. 'I Love to Hurt (You Love to Be Hurt)' actually features CSS’s Lovefoxx as this album’s Kate Moss and holds its own with some minimalist malevolence. As an album it jerks and it stumbles, lacking a definitive identity, but it at least ensures they’ll live to see another day. A future of some sort is assured.
--James Berry
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Related Items:
see more
Related Items:
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
-
Going Uptown!!
For their 9th studio album "Beautiful future", UK alt rockers Primal Scream hire Björn Yttling (of Peter Björn and John) and Paul Epworth (Bloc Party) to handle production. The result is a poppy sounding affair, though still pandering to their passion for jagged and dark undertones.
Opening is the bouncy sunny sounding title track with a lively piano riff, hand claps and rousing chorus. "Can't go back" is another rousing rocker with nice hooted backing harmionies in the chorus. "Beautiful summer" is a beautiful psychedelic sounding dirge with chiming guitars and trippy effects.
The extremely catchy "Uptown" is a groovy dance rocker with a gently caressing vocal and a beat nicked from Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean". Superb! The stomping Blues-tinged "Zombie man" (with a rousing chorus) sounds like a more subdued sibling of "Country girl" from "Riot city blues". The whispered vocals and gently plodding beats give an eerie feel to "Suicide bomb" with snarling guitars adding to the dread.
Folk songstress Linda Thompson" lends her vocals to the gentle and dreamy ballad "Over and over" (a Fleetwood Mac cover). "Necro Hex Blues" features Josh Homme of Queens of the Stoneage and it's an explosive burst of electro rock. Even more electro is "I love to hurt (you love to be hurt)" which features the airy vocals of Lovefoxxx from Brazilian Electro/Punk collective CSS.
An enjoyable sonic experience!
Rating: -
Excellent
Whiel primal scream have been able to make the best and some of the more strange records in the last 15-20 years, this is for once a very strong one. Indeed, while almost all previous efforts contained some extremely strong tracks with some that were less extraordinary, this si a much more even effort. The sound is also very different: this time it is more poppy while the music itself is a mixture of their more electronic music à la XTRMNTR and the rock of Don't Give...This succeeds in creating their strongest effort to date and it is up there with their best two records in my opinion, anmely XTRMNTR and Don't Give as well as parts of Scteamadelica (I know most people think it is a work of genius but it has dated badly and I did not like it that much back then. This one is really a keeper and could be the one that brings them really into the big leagus. Plus they have Lovefoxxx from CSS as well as Lykke Li on board. Also if you judge by his latest interview, Bobby G seems to be on top of things more than ever and I think these tracks live should be splendid.
