Asif Khan Inc.

Beautiful Future – Primal Scream

Scotland has been known for its highlands, but this Scottish band has been notorious for ‘highs’ of a variety not exactly physical, but chemical. Having been around for almost a quarter of a century, they had been binging on copious amounts of edible and injectable material in their heyday to bring about an altered sense of perception, which not surprisingly was the period during which they came out with their mainstream breakthrough work Screamadelica. And just like its almost impossible to get the same level of a ‘hit’ after ‘shooting up’ for the first time, they have been finding it a bit difficult to attain that level, despite some mediocre attainment of success in between. It seems that their latest release Beautiful Future doesn’t really hold much of a promise either (which is probably why they prophetically named their album in the hope of something) while it floats around in a space which neither works on the extreme raw nature of altronica displayed in Screamadelica (Vanishing Point to some extent too) nor is it in the league of cutting edge dance. There are points during the album which do go on to show that the flame still lives on, it’s just that by then the surroundings grow so dark, that the spark doesn’t really have the desired effect.