Primal Scream
Riot City Blues
SonyBMG



I suspect this one's got a few people scratching their heads. Around the turn of the decade Primal Scream made a concerted effort to move beyond their mid-'90s Rolling Stones fixation and concoct a meeting between electronica and the garage. 'Xtrmntr' was a more than fair attempt at remaining relevant and credible. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees, that sort of thing...Which is why it's strange that on 'Riot City Blues' Bobby Gillespie packs his bags and goes running back to the apparent safety of 'Give Out But Don't Give Up'. The money-chord opener Country Girl might be the best song the 'Stones never wrote in the past 25 years; that, and songs like Nitty Gritty, The 99th Floor, We're Gonna Boogie,Hell's Coming Down (all with what sounds like the same three-chord boogie pattern, complete with honking harmonicas) and Sometimes I Feel So Lonely (countrified balladry) could be played straight after 'Give Out...' and you'd never know the difference.

To be fair, the band plays with a fair amount of commitment, and if you prefer this side of Primal Scream, you'd probably be happy to own 'Riot City Blues'. Problem is, Primal Scream write these sorts of songs in their sleep, and when you know that they're capable of so much more, that just makes the back-pedalling inexplicable.

Peter Strelan