No one ever discusses it publicly, but plenty of punters happily buy records and concert tickets of acts they refuse to take seriously. Primal Scream may sincerely believe themselves bearers of rock’n’roll’s torch, yet much of their audience sees only a gang of pinched-faced Scots with a taste for self-delusion.

None of this matters much as long as neither side brings it up. But since the eighth Scream album is their homage to those Seventies albums of other people’s songs recorded by artists with, er, inspiration issues — such as David Bowie’s Pin-Ups and John Lennon’s Rock’n’Roll — people might. Even by the standards of a band who once grieved for the still-living civil-rights campaigner Rosa Parks, this is a daft record.

Unusually these ten instantly familiar songs credit the band as writers. The current single, Country Girl, is quite the hoedown, featuring a mandolin break and what sounds suspiciously like an accordion. It’s certainly audacious, although a suspicion remains that it might be audaciously crappy. And it isn’t the only nod to the Faces, whose Stay With Me is deliberately admired on Hell’s Comin’ Down . The Cramps-quoting We’re Gonna Boogie apes the bluesiest moments on the Rolling Stones’ murky Exile on Main St, while the amusingly juvenile Suicide Sally and Johnny Guitar honours the New York Dolls.

Less obvious, if equally studied, is the cleverly replicated Sixties psychedelia of When the Bomb Drops, featuring excellently wired lead guitar from Will Sargeant of the Bunnymen, while the jolly Nitty Gritty and the enjoyably simplistic Dolls (Sweet Rock and Roll) sound like party hits for former party animals whose cocaine use is now confined to wedding receptions.

Wildly derivative it may be, but Primal Scream are a slick outfit, easily capable of switching styles and rocking up a storm even in unfamiliar genres and Bobby Gillespie understands his vocal frailties well enough to avoid serious embarrassment. But it’s a pity he didn’t put more care into the lyrics. His magpie method of “sampling” other people’s best lines is well-known, but Riot City Blues, with its exhortations to “keep on keepin’ on” and “shake some action”, takes this to extremes.

This then is a silly, catchy and fun record, a gang of comfortably-off middle-aged men singing about the rock’n’roll life they first learnt of from their record collections. Of course they could be joking at our expense but somehow I doubt it. And really, as long as both sides are entertained it hardly matters.

(Columbia)

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