Bobby Gillespie And Jehnny Beth

★★★★ Utopian Ashes SONY. CD/DL/LP

Scream Team meets Savages in a deep-soul maritaltension epic.

Over a quartercentury since Primal Scream chased Southern soul perfection on Give

Out But Don’t Give Up, their core membership here return to that noble quest, abandoning synths and shapeshifting for ‘proper’ songwriting, strings and emotional honesty. The duet format with Jehnny Beth, who plays embittered wife to Bobby Gillespie’s morally bankrupt hubbie in a loose narrative of decline, works with an immediacy that possibly hasn’t blessed the Scream’s every collaboration. Heartbroken balladry, however, was always their strongest suit (think I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have, the gem that Andrew Weatherall turned into Loaded), and Utopian

Ashes is comfortably their best record since the early ’00s, with guitarist Andrew Innes and pianist Martin Duffy each playing superbly, and, on pained standouts such as Remember We Were Lovers and Living A Lie, Gillespie’s lyrics plumbing depths of degradation that feel both real and deeply shocking. It’s not easy listening, but profoundly engaging and redemptive.