Album: Primal Scream, Beautiful Future (B-Unique)

For all the references to "burning cars" and "bodies hanging from the trees" in the title track – not to mention the number title "Suicide Bomb" – Beautiful Future is a very meek beast, the most cowed Primal Scream have sounded in years and a long, long way from the fiery cauldron of Evil Heat's "electronic garage-band rock'n'roll" in 2002.

This is another of their regressions into rock classicism – there's even a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Over & Over", done as a frazzled slide-guitar blues. The usual Stones and Krautrock influences are stirred into most effective shape on the single "Can't Go Back", their latest drug comedown anthem. Elsewhere, the ultimately malign influence of producer Bjorn Yttling has resulted in enervated disco-pop ("Uptown"), flaccid electropop ("The Glory of Love") and trudging heavy rock ("Suicide Bomb") – though none is quite as tiresome as the Youth-produced nadir of "Zombie Man", which is basically "Back Off Boogaloo" crossed with "Tokoloshe Man", a hybrid of little discernible point or utility.

Pick of the album:'Can't Go Back', 'Beautiful Future'