Primal Scream and Kasabian

Riot City Blues (Columbia) and Empire (RCA)

A A A Comments By Annie Zaleski Thursday, Sep 7 2006

Even when Primal Scream didn't match the creative heights reached by Screamadelica's rave-worthy blissouts or the electro-punk of XTRMNTR, the group never lacked self-confidence. After all, it coaxed (and kept) My Bloody Valentine's reclusive Kevin Shields out of hibernation and had the courage to embrace sinewy dark wave long before it was hip again. But it's taken the U.K. band nearly two decades to produce an album as strident as Riot City Blues.

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Blues sounds like the result of an all-night whiskey bender spent listening to the Stones and the Faces, a disc full of loosey-goosey blues jams jumpy with harmonica and shambling guitars. Lead-off track "Country Girl" marches forward with propulsive guitar riffs and twitterpated mandolin, stomping highlight "Nitty Gritty" shakes its moneymaker for all it's worth, and the barnstorming bounce "We're Gonna Boogie" makes good on its claim. Tellingly, though, the album's centerpieces are "Little Death" -- a woozy, six-minute tune that's reminiscent of the spooky death rattles found on 1997's Vanishing Point -- and "Dolls (Sweet Rock and Roll)," a glammy number closer in spirit to the Velvet Underground (mainly because of Bobby Gillespie's Lou Reed-like speak-sing delivery). Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel with each album, the Scream is becoming better at smudging its influences together as its members age.

No one would ever accuse Kasabian of trying to invent anything; the outfit's 2004 debut more often than not sounded like XTRMNTR: The Sequel (albeit as imagined by the Stone Roses). The excellent, dance-floor-friendly Empire contains much of the same bombast and electro-swagger that should be familiar to even cursory Primal Scream fans. But Kasabian is best enjoyed when considered separate from its obvious influences; only then can you truly appreciate "Me Plus One" -- a trippy synth stomp that's somewhat like the Happy Mondays without the lazy-itis -- or "Sun/Rise/ Light/Flies," a soaring, string-laden anthem that splits the difference between the Chemical Brothers and Oasis.

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