Limited Edition Japanese pressing of this album comes housed in a miniature LP sleeve. 2008
Song Titles / Track Listing
1. Country Girl
2. Nitty Gritty
3. Suicide Sally & Johnny Guitar
4. When the Bomb Drops
5. Little Death
6. The 99th Floor
7. We're Gonna Boogie
8. Dolls (Sweet Rock and Roll)
9. Hell's Comin' Down
10. Sometimes I Feel So Lonely
11. Stone Ya to the Bone [*]
12. Gimme Some Truth [*]
13. Suicide Sally & Johnny Guitar [Live][*]
14. Country Girl [CD-ROM Track]
Reviews
If
at first you don't succeed, try again. Riot City Blues is another
attempt at straight-up trad rock where the ghosts of the Faces, the
Rolling Stones, and others come traipsing into Bobby Gillespie's scope
and he goes for it. Some heard an overly strenuous attempt at this on
1994's Give Out But Don't Give Up, where it worked not at all due to
the band's attempt at literally mimicking the sounds of the
aforementioned bands without adding anything else to the mix. Riot City
Blues is a much more relaxed effort, and benefits significantly from
that stance. Yeah, it's true that on first listen "Country Girl," the
album's opener, sounds like an in-the-studio gathering of the Stones
and the Faces riotously attempting a country gospel song -- but on
deeper observation, it feels more like Delaney & Bonnie &
Friends on Motel Shot. The straight-up raw boogie rock of "Nitty
Gritty" takes the Delaney & Bonnie move even deeper and brings
elements of R&B into the equation. This is late-night drunken
rockism. It's not carefully crafted; it's throwing something at the
wall because it's there to throw. Riot City Blues is not an "album as
event" as many past Primal Scream records were; this is an "album for
its own sake" recording. It's an offering where it really seems that
Gillespie doesn't care if he loses his hipster following -- all that
matters is that Riot City Blues rocks. One can hear traces of not only
the Faces but everything from early Alice Cooper ( la Killer) to Mott
the Hoople, David Bowie, the Kinks, the New York Dolls, and a whole lot
of other rock & roll bands. Looser than the Black Crowes, thinner
than even the Black Keys; it's simply shambolic from top to bottom.
This is trashy, nasty rock music that doesn't feel modern but it does
feel timeless. The songs are riff-centric, some of them joyous, others
darkly freaky -- "When the Bomb Drops" is a fine example, and the
complete dope and guitar orgy of "Suicide Sally & Johnny Guitar" is
in the red zone in the same way "Suffragette City" is. (One can feel
the gigantic pub-crawling smile of Mick Ronson from some strange
Valhalla.) Most of the tracks here were produced by ex-Killing Joke
bassist/Orb collaborator Youth, with a pair recorded and produced by
the rather less intense Andrew Innes. Whether "We're Gonna Boogie,"
with its bluesy harmonica and slide guitar -- with Bobby Gillespie
sounding like Donovan singing the Stones' "Country Honk" -- is taking
the piss or not is debatable, but it's a gas to listen to, as is the
down-home "Hell's Comin' Down," with its fiddle (courtesy of the Dirty
Three and Bad Seeds' Warren Ellis), high-strung guitars, 12-strings,
and mandolins. The 12-bar blues formula used on the latter cut is
particularly refreshing. "Dolls" is such a raucous joy that it's
infectious. It's a given that Riot City Blues, issued in 2006, is
easily the most unhip record Primal Scream have ever issued. The songs
are little more than dressing for the riffs, but they have lots of
humor and cleverness and they lack the snide hipsterism of the times.
It doesn't matter. Listened to with an open mind, it's a refreshingly
retro rock & roll album that uses its waste-oid imagination in
capturing every fantasy that entered Bobby Gillespie's teenage mind.
Get it. [The U.S. edition of the album includes three bonus tracks
(including a cover of John Lennon's "Gimme Some Truth") and the "non
censored" version of the "Country Girl" video.] ~ Thom Jurek
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