Riot City Blues

Untitled

Riot City Blues is the eighth studio album by Scottish rock band Primal Scream, released on 5 June 2006 by Columbia Records. With this album, the band left behind the electronic elements they had used on their previous albums XTRMNTR (2000) and Evil Heat (2003), returning to more traditional rock and roll. The album features guest appearances from Will Sergeant, Warren Ellis, and Alison Mosshart, and was the last album to feature guitarist Robert "Thrub" Young, who departed before the album's UK tour for personal reasons.

The album's first single "Country Girl" became the band's highest charting in their career, while the album charted at number 5 in the UK. "Dolls (Sweet Rock and Roll)" and "Sometimes I Feel So Lonely" were also released as singles.

Reception

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	59/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link
ARTISTdirect	link
The Guardian	link
The Independent	link
Pitchfork Media	(2.3/10) link
Q	July, 2006 (p. 110)
Rolling Stone	link

The album was released to varying reviews. A particularly scathing review by Pitchfork claimed that the album was "flat and dead. It's as if Primal Scream have run completely out of ideas and so they've reverted to the detestable fallbacks of honking harmonicas and bar-band choogles, acting like college freshmen who just discovered blues." While The Guardian said "...Primal Scream are the kind of band that would probably snap there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure, only good music and bad music. But their eighth album undermines that claim. On the one hand, it is conservatism dressed up as rebellion, derivative, self-parodic and very, very, stupid. On the other, it boasts an energy and a shamelessness that demands you abandon your vast array of reservations. No mean feat."

Track listing

1. "Country Girl" (4:31)
2. "Nitty Gritty" (3:38)
3. "Suicide Sally & Johnny Guitar" (3:14)
4. "When the Bomb Drops" (4:34)
5. "Little Death" (6:22)
6. "The 99th Floor" (3:50)
7. "We're Gonna Boogie" (2:52)
8. "Dolls (Sweet Rock and Roll)" (3:58)
9. "Hell's Comin' Down" (3:27)
10. "Sometimes I Feel So Lonely" (5:06)

Personnel

Primal Scream

• Bobby Gillespie – vocals
• Andrew Innes – guitars, mandolins, banjo, Moog synthesizer
• Martin Duffy – piano, organ, harmonium, harmonica
• Robert Young – guitars, harmonica
• Gary 'Mani' Mounfield – bass guitar
• Darrin Mooney – drums, percussion

with:

• Alison Mosshart – additional vocals on tracks 3 and 8
• Will Sergeant – guitar on tracks 4 and 5
• Chris Allen – hurdy-gurdy on track 5
• Warren Ellis – violin on track 9
• Juliet Roberts, Sharlene Hector, Sylvia Mason-James and John Gibbons – backing vocals on tracks 1, 2, 5 and 10
• Richard Beale – French horn on track 10

External links

• Riot City Blues at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)