Primal Scream - Beautiful Future Format: Album Release Date: 21st Jul 2008 Label: b-unique Rating: Think insipid, think irrelevant, think anorexic rock ’n‘ roll fed through a cheap saline drip, think Primal Scream and the inarticulate stick insect that is Bobby Gillespie. Ever since he banged some drums with the near legendary Jesus and Mary Chain in the eighties, this most meagre of talents has led a charmed life and managed to carve out a lucrative career as a cartoon drug addled tortured genius, mainly because of an era defining album, the legendary Screamadelica, which even the most churlish of listeners would have to admit was rather bloody good, but, to misquote Janet Jackson… Bobby, what have you done for me lately?...not a lot really. He continues to bang on about his admittedly faultless list of favourite bands, The Stones, Can, The Stooges, the MC5, but time and again their influences are notably absent from his own recordings. He’s a magpie, another lucky sod in an ivory tower with a record contract, a big gob and a bigger pile of money, who writes rubbish lyrics and sings like a nasally impaired B&Q sales assistant.         So you won’t be surprised to hear that Beautiful Future is up to his usual uninspired standards, full of plodding dirges, complete with revolutionary toytown clichés, Necro Hex Blues [which features Josh Homme on additional guitar, and who ought to know better] and the title track in particular are lessons in mediocrity. Then there’s the obligatory plastic soul  moments [most of the album] all sung in a weedy whiney voice that really gets on my tits. Oh and why not have a bit of Kraftwerk lite?  I Love To Hurt ticks this particular  box, Lovefox from C.S.S does a bit of singing on this one. Then there’s a vile track called Suicide Bomb, which is everything you imagine it to be, but less. If Manni is on here then he’s turned his bass right down. The only redeeming factor is the presence of Linda Thompson on a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Over and Over. The production is thin to the point of transparency and lacks any dynamic tension. The playing is uninspired. It’s rock and roll by numbers, and he’s using the wrong numbers. It might be a beautiful future for Bobby Gillespie, but for the listener it’s fucking grim

Written by: John Haylock