Primal Scream Riot City Blues (BMG) Consistently one of the most original, exciting and challenging bands of the past 20 years, the Scream have worn their influences on their sleeves as they've skated stylistically back and forth across the rock pantheon. After the amphetamine-fuelled industrial agitprop of Xtrmntr and variable Evil Heat they've returned to the rollicking boogie woogie of their mid-1990s Give Out But Don't Give Up collection. For anyone who's seen them live, they're a cross between the Beggars Banquet-era Stones, Love and the Sex Pistols. Riot City Blues manages to encapsulate the Stones side of their live persona. From the mandolin-led honk of Country Girl to the psychedelic freakout of Little Death and the rockabilly drive of 99th Floor, Scream leader Bobby Gillespie lives out his mid-60s Jagger dream in wonderfully ragged style. The themes remain the same: hard drugs, loose women and fast cars - or, rather, this time round, fast motorcycles - and the lyrics are so clumsy they trip off the CD ('Gearhead candy the nitro queen/ She's a bad motorcycle/ Ya know what I mean/ She got her wings, givin' head to a priest/ That f***** choked on his rosary beads,' he sings with no sense of irony on Suicide Sally and Johnny Guitar, a track reputedly about his mates Kate Moss and Pete Doherty). But Bobby G can be forgiven for any misgivings: he's the preacher man who believes rock'n'roll will save your soul but he's belting out the blues like he's next in line at the crossroads.
