Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 05/06/06
Label: Columbia

At the back end of 1999, right on the cusp of the millennium, Primal Scream unleashed what some regard their masterpiece. Like a f*cking starving dog, uncaged after one month in a cell having been fed nothing more than a bowl of rabies, "XTRMNTR" remains something truly spectacular to behold. Almost a decade on from the elated revolution of "Screamadelica", this was another, radically different, landmark record. In a flare of red lights and screaming sirens, here was Primal Scream broadcasting from the frontline, mid-apocalypse. It would take something quite amazing to erase "XTRMNTR" from the memory. Enter "Riot City Blues".

Listening back now to "Accelerator" from "XTRMNTR", amid the disgusting feedback and a kick drum skewering into your skull, Bobby Gillespie can be heard howling: "What's the screaming in my head? It's the future, it's the future." Surely he can't have meant an inane boogie'n'roll fiasco? More recently, at last summer's Glastonbury Festival, as a wired, myth-making Gillespie abused the crowd for deigning to enjoy Kylie and Basement Jaxx, some of us relished his outlaw sneering. We weren't expecting the group to so easily recoil from the future-punk noise and sloganeering they wore with such fierce intent.

"Riot City Blues" starts fairly poorly and gets progressively worse. "Country Girl" has a great hook and is as close a distillation of the inherent throwaway notion of rock'n'roll as you're going to get. However, that doesn't excuse a whole albums worth of it. With 1993's "Give Out But Don't Give Up", Primal Scream attempted a similar trick. Following "Screamadelica" with the likes of "Rocks" and "Jailbird" - both superior to pretty much everything here - has seen only those two tracks command a position on their 21st century set-list. The future will perhaps judge this record even more unkindly.

Quite believably recorded in a matter of days, Gillespie's passion for 'vintage blues' and The Rolling Stones holds sway almost incessantly here, instead of Krautrock via The Stooges. But this is no "Exile On Main Street". It lacks the soul and is the small matter of 35 years late. "Suicide Sally And Johnny Guitar", "Real Nitty Gritty", "Sweet Rock'n'Roll", "We're Gonna Boogie" and "Sometimes I Feel So Lonely" require no lengthy description. They are affectionately executed but tossed-off pastiches in the art of good-time garage rock, underlined with a neverending series of almighty clichés from Gillespie, in that faux-American drawl he does not so well.

Only "When The Bomb Drops" - a crashing spitfire of a tune, promising the deliverance that is absent elsewhere - and the Eastern psych drone rattlesnake of "Little Death", are really worth your time if you consider Primal Scream to be as potent a weapon of sound as they often are. Ultimately, you are forced to ponder the absence of My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields on any of these recordings, while also recognising the significant contribution made by numerous producers on the band's best work. Sadly, "Riot City Blues" will surely incite nothing more than the listener to hit the off switch.

    by Ben Gilbert