Blues Rock, Alternative Rock
2006
Originally written in June 2006
I imagine that UK-based Ebay sellers hawking music posters, t-shirts and the like regularly have a good laugh at us desperate Anglophiles stranded across the pond. T'was only a few months back when I, midway through my freshman year of college, was scouring Ebay for posters to decorate my hole of a dorm room with. The obscene shipping charges didn't faze me, and neither did the now-terrifying '£' signs prefixing each price. At the end of the day, though, I was happy, because I had scored myself a rather brilliant promo poster of Primal Scream's XTRMNTR album. In fact, I didn't even mind that the shipment eventually took a whole month to arrive and Old Blighty's Royal Mail managed to mangle the Placebo poster I'd also ordered en route.
I didn't mind because the sheer belligerence radiating from that poster, along with its vowel-less soundbites (SBVRT NRMLTY, PRML SCRM) heralded a thrilling and dangerous new sound. Sure, 2002's Evil Heat did kind of sound like a retread of that, but it still maintained its exciting hi-octane electrobuzz clamour. Surely, the follow-up would be a return to the vicious militant-punk that had put them back on the map. I mean, it is called Riot City Blues; I can practically smell the high-priced, politics-distorted, cartel-manipulated petrol emanating from a soda-bottle Molotov cocktail.
Then the banjo-esque guitar licks of 'Country Girl' kicked in, and my illusions cruelly evaporate.
Panicked, I fast-forward through all the tracks, and realize with horror that they all sound like this. Any album-related merchandise purchased now would totally lack the anti-establishment credo of past 'Scream, let alone bask in the delicious irony of submitting to consumerist urges to purchase it to stick it to The Man. This could conceivably be even more of a letdown than the time the Jesus and Mary Chain released the deplorably feedback-free Darklands after the spine-tingling noise assault of their Psychocandy. At least back then it was 1987, and the t-shirt designs were unwearably bad.
It's immediately clear that noise-guitar maven Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine and new-wave veteran Bernard Sumner of New Order have both declined to participate in RCB, after lending their talents intermittently throughout the last two records. Vocalist Bobby Gillespie has apparently taken this as a signal to return to the hippie roots-rock that left the group languishing in obscurity in the 80s, and nearly wrecked the momentum built after 1991's breakout success, the neo-psych-splashed Screamadelica.
Claims that the new record has been influenced by the New York Dolls and/or T-Rex have been highly exaggerated. Yes, there's a touch of the Doll's glam-punk, but it's scattered at best. The admittedly catchy, balls-out rock of 'Suicide Sally and Johnny Guitar' does bear the mascara-leaking guitar wails of Johansen and co. 'Dolls (Sweet Rock 'n Roll)' bears more than a passing resemblance to Marc Bolan's crunchy riffs, as well as KISS<-esque 'La-la-la-let's have a good time' chorus, and slinky solo. Both are good candidates for new singles.
Unfortunately, nothing of similar praise can be said for the absurdly successful (for Primal Scream anyway) first single, the opening track 'Country Girl'. Charting at #5 I'm afraid does nothing but allow a national audience to discover Gillespie's worrying obsession with perfecting the throwback retro-blues sound, something they never quite pull off the last time they tried it, on 1994's Give Out But Don't Give Up. Which, incidentally, featured a neon Confederate flag on its cover, so earnest were their intentions.
You'd think that his credibility as a blues-rocker has sunk somewwhat further after making a name for himself for penning more, shall we say, intimidating tunes like 'Swastika Eyes' and 'Skull X'. 'Country Girl' does however have all the requisite podunk instrumentation down; fiddles, harmonicas, the works. It's just that Gillespie sounds silly singing:
Better go back to yer momma; she'll take care of you
....One more time!
(embarrassing chorus that ends with 'Country girl!/Gotta keep on keepin' on!')
I wouldn't normally take issue with song titles, but I must say that it's unnecessary to shamelessly flaunt this pseudo-reinvention on titles like 'Nitty Gritty' and even worse, 'We're Gonna Boogie'. The latter simply brims with borderline-offensive country-bumpkin vibes; a nagging three-note harmonica drone is about all the instrumentation to be found here. Even the more promisingly titled 'Hell's Comin' Down' turns out to be as chock-full of banjos and what are possibly six-string slide guitars. Ugh. The faux-Southern contraction in the spelling of 'Comin' ' should have tipped me off.
The last of the few bright spots in the record come with the fiery polemics of 'When the Bomb Drops'. Similar in spirit to the New York Dolls' 'Vietnamese Baby', the urgent guitar wails and political lyrics are the very last remnants of all that was achieved on the last two records. In the end, though, the glam swagger of 'Dolls' wins out as the best cut on the record, even if its impact is dimmed somewhat by the comatose psychedelia of 'Little Death' that follows.
It's never a good thing when bands drop a good thing to pursue their original visions of a less workable sound. Last year, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club did the same thing on Howl. The Raveonettes haven't had great luck with Pretty in Black either. The difference is, both of the above had always displayed retro influences in the undercurrents of their sound. Primal Scream on the other hand, appear to have been out of practice for about 12 years. With that said, I suppose I can't fault them too much, as this is clearly a labour of love. It's just unfortunate when that love appears to be for sloppy, unfocused, dingy bar-band blues.
