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

Riot City Blues is the eighth studio album by Primal Scream, released on 5 June 2006. On this album, Primal Scream leaves its electronic element behind and returns to more traditional rock and roll. The album features Will Sergeant (Echo & the Bunnymen) on "When The Bomb Drops" and "Little Death", Warren Ellis (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dirty Three) on "Hell's Coming Down" and Alison Mosshart (The Kills) adding vocals to "Dolls (Sweet Rock and Roll)" and "Suicide Sally & Johnny Guitar". The debut single, "Country Girl", became the band's highest charting in their career, while the album charted at #5 in the UK. "Dolls (Sweet Rock and Roll)" and "Sometimes I Feel So Lonely" were also released as singles in 2006.

It is the last album to feature the guitarist Robert "Thrub" Young, who departed before the UK album tour due to a personal life reason; he later died in September 2014.

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."

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Wikipedia