ZapTown

Primal Scream
Riot City Blues

2006 – Columbia
Origin: Glasgow, Scotland
Style: Rock and Roll

Primal Scream has done it all. They have reached the outer limits and preached the gospel of rock and roll. They have dove deep into the nether regions of electronica. They have been sonic. They have been soulful.

So what’s a band to do now?

For Primal Scream, they tear the constructs of what they built up and start all over again. They have been doing this all along but this time they throw it all away and start back to the primal basics of rock and roll.

Call it re-inventing the wheel. They tried it once with Give Out But Don’t Give Up but could not reach their level of success they were accustomed to. Enter Riot City Blues. This was their chance to make good on a failed attempt at traditional rock and roll. For some, they managed to pull it off. For others, it was not just a bad attempt, but a horrible relapse for a band that was used to pushing the boundaries of form and function between rock and electronica.

Coke Machine Glow said that “it’s nice that Primal Scream attacks these tunes with gusto, but the passionate performance doesn’t hide the fact that this album is utterly inessential” and later reducing them to a “wedding band.” (http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/1508/primal-scream).

Stylus scathes that “listening to the Scream for lyrical insight is like listening to Dylan for beats though, it’s just that on Riot City Blues there’s precious little of the random, borderline psychotic eclecticism-cum-theft-cum-letting-other-people-make-their-records-for-them genius that has made Primal Scream worth paying attention to over the last 20 years” (http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/primal-scream/riot-city-blues.htm)

Ouch! Now there are some reputable pubs that loved the album like Entertainment Weekly and The Guardian: Alex Petridis gushes that the album is all done “with such snarling, adrenalised gusto that it proves irresistible.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/may/26/popandrock.shopping8)

Contact Music considers Riot City Blues to be the “sound of a proper rock ‘n’ roll band at their confident best, seeming to have gathered all they have learned before stripping it back to its purest unadulterated roots, and with what’s left, delivering their most coherent work to date.” (http://www.contactmusic.com/new/home.nsf/webpages/primalscreamx11x05x06)

I can go on and on quoting various reviews across the entertainment gamut. Critics either loved to hate this album, or hated to admit that they loved this album.

The only universal problem is that Primal Scream is not a proper rock ‘n’ roll band. There is nothing proper about them. However this album gives that illusion. When Primal Scream started the XTRMNTR project, they enlisted My Bloody Valentine guitarist Kevin Shields to guest on the album. However, he became a semi-permanent member of the band up until this album, when he gave them his exit papers. Not to say that Shields made that period of the band’s career what it was, but it certainly upped the sonic intensity.

In addition, longtime guitarist and mainstay since the beginning of the band Robert Young vanished, as well.

To cover the gap, they had Will Sergeant from Echo and the Bunnymen to replace Shields, as well as added The Kills’ Alison Mosshart on backing vocals with a guest violin performance by Dirty Three’s Warren Ellis on “Sometimes I Feel So Lonely.”

Trying to capture the angst-powered vibe of blues rock classicism, the band recorded live at London’s Olympic Studios. The output is a dirty Stonesesque Let It Bleed style realization, although many people attribute it to Exile On Main Street. I don’t see it. It’s not raw enough. It’s not bluesy enough. This is just standard rock and roll catchiness.

“Country Girl” became the standout hit, especially in the United Kingdom — reaching number five on the charts, as much as the Stones’ “Country Honk” was in the ‘70s (although the Stones song did much better in the ratings for obvious reasons). It’s an easy song to listen to. It’s great for drunken sing-alongs, and could almost be mistaken for frat party fiascos. You know the staple songs that get butchered no matter where it ends up in the night — think Black Crowes or Blues Traveler. But Primal Scream make the song work, in a Dexy’s Midnight Runners aspect ratio and despite its textbook hooks, it’s a great intro into this album.

Too bad Riot City Blues runs mostly lukewarm at best. Something like “Nitty Gritty” may be a true hip shaker, but “Give Me Some Truth” is downright embarrassing, throwing in some Rancid-like punk rock “Yeah yeah yeah” shout outs that is one step shy of some added “Oi’s.” It has no place not just in this album, but in the band’s repertoire no matter how reactionary a protext XTRMNTR was. Place this grouping of songs within the rock and roll revival movement that was going on in the beginning of the 21st Century, and it just gets lost in the rush of conceited songs that were done better when classic rock was, well, classic rock.

Cross-Reference: Rolling Stones, Stone Roses, The Verve