Primal Scream: Riot City Blues

Herald rating: * *

Primal Scream sound like they've been out on the razzle-dazzle, come home, and laid down a few songs for their next record. There's no doubt they are a tight band, and they really get into it, but most of these tracks are throwaways because you've heard them before.

The acid-house trip of their 1991 album Screamadelica is a masterpiece and could never be repeated. They came close on the shin-shattering bass journey trilogy of Vanishing Point, Echo Dek and the excellent XTRMNTR.

But when frontman Bobby Gillespie and the rest of the lads - including former Stone Roses bass player Mani - do the rock'n'roll blues they come across as inane. They did it on 1994's weak Give Out But Don't Give Up, which featured the single Rocks, and they've done it again on Riot City Blues.

Change the words to the romping Nitty Gritty and it may as well be Rocks. The standouts are the paranoid junkie rock of When the Bomb Drops, featuring Echo and the Bunnymen's Will Sergeant on guitar, and the writhing snake-pit charms of Little Death, a reprieve from the album's waster blues. Primal Scream need to think about getting loaded again and having a good time like they did in '91.

Label: Sony/BMG