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Rating: * * *
Primal Scream return for another electro-rock extravaganza, soprano Ruth Ziesak sings a long Liszt, yet another Joy Division film and a real Dagg of a compilation
The drugs may not be as effective or inspiring as they were a few years ago, but the songs keep coming for Primal Scream. And as their ninth album reveals, there's still plenty of the loping beats and dreamy haze of acid house - captured on the band's classic Screamadelica in 1991 - coming through in their beautifully reckless and trashy rock 'n' roll.
It starts with the happy-clappy jaunt and chiming bells of the title track, but this rosy, uplifting pop mood is a little off-putting at first. Then again, in a 25-year career Primal Scream have always come up with scorching pop hits (Loaded and Rocks for example), raging paranoid rockers and druggy dance anthems.
On Beautiful Future there's nothing as potent as Kowalski off 1997's Vanishing Point or the punishing excellence of 2000's XTRMNTR. But what it lacks in menace it makes up for with sonic pop, pulsing electro and soulful energy.
Lovefoxxx from Brazilian party rock band CSS adds her vampish and playful vocals to the throbbing I Love To Hurt (You Love To Be Hurt); they kick out the jams on Can't Go Back, with the line "I stuck a needle in my arm, I stuck it in my baby's heart, she looked so hot and sexy, she wasn't there at all" showing singer Bobby Gillespie and the boys have well and truly grown up; and Over & Over is a sweet and reflective cover of a Fleetwood Mac song.
There's more "devil drugs" references on the sleazy soul of Uptown and the woozy synth-driven Suicide Bomb; and Queens of the Stone Age leader Josh Homme wields his trademark mangled guitar on nasty album finale Necro Hex Blues.
It's no Screamadelica, but it's still a wicked trip and the future's so bright you might need your shades.
- Scott Kara
