When, however, Gillespie tells the New Musical Express that the band's latest work consists of a collection of "sugar coated bullets", it's difficult to know what to expect. Devoted, contrarian genre hoppers throughout their history, Primal Scream have palpably viewed artistic compromise as another man's problem. Either way, after 2006's enthusiasm-free and largely derivative Riot City Blues, the kind of nihilistic creative fissure which The Fall have disappeared into had openly beckoned.
Whatever the metaphor, the end results are striking. As close to pop as their post rave dreadnought Screamadelica, Beautiful Future remains as proudly un-contemporary as any other Primal Scream record, but with the partial reintroduction of melody and even the odd reference to love, it's a staunchly egalitarian affair that no longer demands a slightly twisted world view to access. The roads-to-Damascus thing is underlined on the titular opener, as close to sweet as ever half a dozen aging rockhammerers could stand to be, courtesy of a melodic glaze supplemented by chiming bells and displaying a sprig of Franz Ferdinand's knowing urbanity. To underline the apparent volte-face, "Can't Go Back", with its sludgy new rave hooks and propellant bass, is the kind of thing New Order will probably do after the end of their latest hiatus.
I don't have to tell you and you already know that this isn't mainstream in a Girls Aloud sense, however. A look at two of the collaborations illustrates this neatly. Whilst Josh Homme is on familiar psycho acid rock territory on the more than passable "Necro Hex Blues", CSS' LoveFoxx is practically anonymous on the cheesy techno noir of "I Love To be Hurt You (You Love to be Hurt)". Then again, it wouldn't be a Scream album of course without a couple of Bobby's bullets turning out to be blanks; these flaws reach an apex on the self-pastiching, chicken fried rawk of "Zombie Man" (sample line: "Hey hey zombie man, gonna put you in the can"). A dissection of this record's lyrical content is best summed up by saying that Gillespie has seemingly kept every poetic idea he ever had from the age of eight and on this evidence isn't afraid to use them, whatever their vintage.
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