Primal Scream, the Scottish rock band featuring the wild, troublemaking singer, Bobby Gillespie, has unfortunately been under the radar of mainstream music fans in the United States for the last 22 years.
This may be partly because of Gillespie's chronic drug difficulties, notably in the early '90s.
The real reason the band hasn't caught on: it's schizophrenic when making records, bouncing between garage rock and techno.
The band's latest release, "Riot City Blues," goes back to a Stooges and MC5 styling, but it doesn't stop there. It is a hurricane of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll containing blistering guitar solos, screeching vocals and thundering drums - the essential ingredients in a rock 'n' roll composition.
"Riot City Blues" is the album meant to blow the fuses in a stereo, turn a quiet pub into an all-out bar brawl and drive women crazy. A record as mean, dirty and real as this has not been made since the early '90s. The album's musical substance puts bands like Jet to shame by proving that there's a little more to rock than just dressing up like a rock star.
What separates this record from most is that every song on the album has a hook. The first single, "Country Girl," is a bass drum-stomping hybrid of Led Zeppelin's "Black Country Woman" and the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man." In the chorus, Gillespie hollers the pleading lines, "Country girl, take my hand/Lead me through this diseased land." The third track on the album, "Suicide Sally and Johnny Guitar," is a speed-demon blues number that offers a raspier vocal performance by Gillespie and blasts out a shredding guitar solo from Andrew Innes. The songs "Nitty Gritty," "The 99th Floor" and "Dolls (Sweet Rock 'n' Roll)" all provide Detroit-rock grooves that even Iggy Pop himself would get down to. The thumping bass drum, thick Memphis harmonica and libido-driven humming on the lustrous blues track "We're Gonna Boogie" will be the song to knock down the walls in all the venues they play in England throughout the fall.
"Riot City Blues" is exactly what the music world needs right now: nasty, sexy and authentic rock 'n' roll. After one listen, it won't immediately stack up next to the classics "Fun House" (The Stooges) or "Exile on Main Street" (The Rolling Stones), but five years from now, we'll still be howling about this album.
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