Primal Scream have released two new songs, ‘Ready To Go Home’ and ‘The Centre Cannot Hold’, ahead of upcoming album ‘Come Ahead’. Listen to the tracks below.
Today (September 25), the band issued the two singles on streaming platforms via BMG, following recent peeks into their 12th album in the form of ‘Deep Dark Waters’ and ‘Love Insurrection’. ‘Come Ahead’ is set for release on November 8. Pre-orders are live here.
“It’s a joyous acceptance of death. It’s dark, but it’s also up, full of humour,” frontman Bobby Gillespie says of ‘Ready To Go Home’, which is the album’s opening track. He notes that he sang the lyrics of the song to his father, Robert Gillespie Senior, the night before he passed away.
“It was just me and him in the hospital. His body had given up. I think, when you get old and tired and your body just goes, ‘I’ve had enough. Time to go.’ I was trying to write about that feeling, I don’t know why – maybe I was feeling tired myself. Sometimes I do.”
“When I wrote this song I was thinking, there must be a point in your life where you think, time to go home.” The elegiac – but no less joyful – funk-infused track was previously issued as a dub remix by UK house veterans Terry Farley and Wade Teo.
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The new project will mark the band’s 12th studio album and first full-length LP since 2016’s ‘Chaosmosis’. It’ll contain 11 new tracks, and is set to see songwriter, vocalist and frontman Bobby Gillespie deliver some of his most personal and emotionally-open work of his career.
The writing process began back in 2022, and came during a time when Gillespie was unsure if he would make another Primal Scream album again. According to a press release, the entire LP began with the lyrics, and marked the first time in a long while where the words came ahead of the music.
“The story came first. Bobby wrote alone, using an acoustic guitar. Ideas flowed fast, in long bursts of inspiration,” it read. “This process, in tandem with encouragement from producer David Holmes, provided a new way in. Working with Holmes and Primal Scream guitarist Andrew Innes, the Come Ahead sessions were completed between Belfast, London and Los Angeles.”
“I’m very excited about this album in a way that you would be making your first record. If there was an overall theme to ‘Come Ahead’ it might be one of conflict, whether inner or outer,” said Gillespie of the new LP.
“There is also a thread of compassion running through the album. The title is a Glaswegian term. If someone threatens to fight you, you say, ‘Come ahead!’ It’s redolent of the indomitable spirit of the Glaswegian, and the album itself shares that aggressive attitude and confidence. They have a word for this up there, gallus. ‘Come Ahead’ is quite a cheeky title too.”
The artwork to the album was created using a photograph of the frontman’s late father, Robert Gillespie Senior, taken by Turner Prize-nominated artist Jim Lambie. It was chosen as he remains deeply respected for his lifelong commitment to campaigning for social justice, and themes of class run through ‘Come Ahead’.
“There is a message of hope in the record,” Gillespie said. “But it’s tempered with an acceptance of the worst side of human nature.”