I'm back, and this time I won't be leaving. I'm going to try to review all the albums that came out before I started this blog. And at least one more that's coming out before the end of the year. It's a review a day, so we'll see if it actually happens. First up is the new Primal Scream album.
I didn't know anything about this album until I saw a review on Pitchforkmedia. I guess everyone has written them off after their last turd, Riot City Blues. Which is a shame, because while that album generally sucked, it had some fun moments, and Primal Scream have recorded plenty of exciting music to earn the right to release one bad album without being written off.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid that Beatiful Future may be shitty album #2 for these guys. I honestly haven't made up my mind, but a lot of the problems that were present on Riot City Blues are present here. This was somewhat unexpected for me since Beautiful Future is sonically much closer to Vanishing Point and Evil Heat than the retro-rock of Riot City Blues. features a return to the electronic music that has given us many of Primal Scream's best moments. But the problems on Riot City Blues went much deeper than their return to retro-rock. Specifically, Primal Scream sound like a band that are running out of ideas. They've reinvented their sound so many times that there really is no way of knowing what the "real" Primal Scream sounds like. Like Riot City Blues, Beautiful Future is a forced shift in style that never sounds genuine and is only intermittently entertaining.
My problems with this album started immediately with the opening title track. "Beautiful Future" ranks up there among the most boring songs Primal Scream has ever done. When I heard that this album featured a return to electronic music, I was hoping for another Vanishing Point, but instead, this song let me know that I was in for something else entirely. For the first time in a long time, Primal Scream sounded upbeat and happy, and I hated it. Things got worse with "Can't Go Back" which is just a straightforward rock song that just makes Primal Scream sound old. They're trying to summon more angst than they really have.
Unfortunately, one of the album's strongest moments can't even be properly credited to Primal Scream. The song "I Love to Hurt (You Love to Be Hurt)" features a collaboration with CSS's Lovefoxxx. I didn't even know who she was until I bought this album. After checking out a few clips on Youtube, I'm pretty convinced I would hate that group if I listened to them anymore. But her seductive voice adds a level of energy and interest to a song that would just feel pathetic if Bobby Gillespe was the only one singing. The song is one of the most heavily electronic pieces on the album, and I have a feeling that it's not too far from irritating the fuck out of me, but whatever ballancing act they pulled off on that song worked. The same can't be said for the rest of the album.
This isn't to say that there aren't other enjoyable moments here. The soulful chorus backing the group on "Zombie Man" manages to make that a rather fun song. "Suicide Bomb" also works as a strong mid-temp rock song. But too many of the songs on here are literally forgettable (there are at least two songs that I simply can't recall what they sound like), and too many of the rest are just not very interesting. Even when the album works, it's the sound of a band with no idea what it wants to say or how it wants to say it.
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