Primal Scream - Beautiful Future

Jul 8 2008 By Paul Cole

(b-unique)

THEY’VE done underground, they’ve done dance. Last time out they were retro-rockers – and now Primal Scream go pop.

The Riot City Blues album made Bobby Gillespie & Co a mainstream rock act with its Stones clones, but this time out they take their cues from 1970s glam, the title track recalling all those Mott The Hoople hits.

Elsewhere, boogied-up The Glory Of Love is an homage to Marc Bolan’s T Rex, the lazy Beautiful Summer nods to The Doors, and Uptown is slow and slinky, almost an early Pet Shop Boys demo.

Single choice Can’t Go Back is more contemporary, a rock riff with dancefloor appeal that will be loved by just about anyone who ever bought a Queens Of The Stone Age album.

Little surprise, then, that QOTSA frontman Josh Homme adds gutsy guitar to frantic finale Viva!

Other cameos come from folkie Linda Thompson during a reverb-drenched cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Over & Over, and from CSS songbird Lovefoxxx on electropop anthem I Love To Hurt.

Not as punchy as Riot City, but clearly Gillespie has a beautiful future.