Primal Scream

"Can't Go Back"

BY Cam LindsayPublished Jun 9, 2008

I can now admit in hindsight that I wasn’t that jazzed about Primal Scream’s Riot City Blues. The rock’n’blues affair was not quite as messy as 1994’s soul-sucking Give Out But Don’t Give Up or blandly raw as their 1989 self-titled record, but as much as the Scream like to shake things up, their last album was kind of a buzz kill, after the elated electro punk highs they left us on with 2000’s XTRMNTR and 2002’s Evil Heat. Well, thankfully Bobby G and his motley crew have recognised their err, and set forth to make a pop record. (His words not mine.)

At the beginning of the year, Gillespie told Uncut their ninth album, Beautiful Future (out July 22) will be "very different from the last record, which was bluesy. It's happy sounding, it's shaping up to be a very 'up' record at the minute - not angular or depressing or anything like that. It's still very guitar-based, maybe a bit more pop, but still very Primal Scream. I think we're always quite pop anyway...”

And he’s right. On their message-sending first single, "Can’t Go Back,” Martin Duffy’s synths are back, with a blistering beat by Darrin Mooney, and a chest-caving bass line by the one and only Mani - and when Andrew Innes screams on the guitar it sounds more electrifying than all of Riot City Blues’ riffs pooled together. Bobby, though, saves the best for himself, playfully sighing the verses and belting the chorus, while adding "oohs” alongside the like-minded, ooze gushing synth. This is essentially XTRMNTR with a big wad of bubblegum in its mouth.

Yeah, it’s quite pop, but like everything else, no one quite does it like the Scream.

Primal Scream "Can’t Go Back”

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