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Primal Scream

Can’t Go Back

July 3, 2008 | 7 Comments
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Primal Scream at Glastonbury 2005 Photo Alex Maguire

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Like a man who realises he’s forgotten his mobile charger when he’s halfway to Heathrow, Bobby Gillespie knows he can’t go back. So do his band. After the pointless retro of ‘Riot City Blues’, saints be praised, the Scream team are facing forward again. With a dental-drill hook and Bobby muttering about how he “Stuck a needle in my arm… stuck it in my baby’s heart”, ‘Can’t Go Back’ rockets straight from the ‘XTRMNTR’ school of propulsive, night-streaked electro-rock’n’roll. In anyone else’s hands it’d sound try-hard, but it’s impossible to call them a cliché when they invented so many.

Gavin Haynes

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Comments (7)

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cpbrophy

Jul 4, 2008

A really great track hope the album is as good as it but what's up with Gavin Haynes saying that Riot City Blues was pointless it was a really good album it may not have been as good as their early stuff it was still brillant get facts right mate

Jimmy2605

Jul 4, 2008

fukin top tune

Grimbo

Jul 5, 2008

the last album was pretty weak but this bodes well for the new one. liking it.

steuph1976

Jul 17, 2008

Riot City Blues was great. It was just another side of Primal Scream. They've always been able to do both "classic" rock'n'roll and electro crossover records. They've always been precisely about that, it's what makes them so interesting. They can do Exile on Main Street era Rolling Stones, they can do Neu, they can do Suicide, they can do The Prodigy, they can do hip hop... They're just at ease with every style and every era. That's called having a musical culture. And the greatest rock'n'roll frontman alive. (as well as the greatest bass player)