Album Review: Primal Scream - Reverberations (Travelling In Time) (2023)

Craig Stephen on new / old Primal Scream …

Primal Scream haven’t been overly enthusiastic about their early years. The first band compilation Dirty Hits (2003) dismissed two entire albums worth and several singles, instead beginning the band’s adventure five years after their debut single.

Two further collections have partly rectified this misnomer with the inclusion of some tracks dating from 1985-1987.

Nevertheless, those initial, naïve, formative years remain largely untouched, so seeing the release of Reverberation (Travelling In Time) - subtitled BBC Radio Sessions & Creation Singles 1985-1986 - is something of a Secret Santa gem for those Primal fans who love all the various phases the band has gone through.

This was pre-electronica, indeed pre-rock’n’roll/Stones loving Primals, with influences such as The Byrds and Love to the fore. They were pivotal members of the twee scene – of which jangling guitars, anoraks and floppy fringes were de rigeur.

In May 1985 the Glasgow outfit burst onto the indie rock scene with the single ‘All Fall Down’/‘It Happens’ with a cover cribbed from a Francoise Hardy album. It didn’t sell and was ignored by the then influential weekly newspapers such as NME, Sounds, Melody Maker and Record Mirror. The band line-up then was Bobby Gillespie on vocals, fellow founding member Jim Beattie on guitar, Robert Young on bass, Stewart May on rhythm guitar, Tam McGurk on drums and Martin St John on tambourine.

 Paul Harte replaced May after the recording of that single and with his outlook and love of trendy clothing gave the band a bit of oomph. As Beattie explains in the album’s liner notes things were soon taking off during that British summer: “Paul had a brilliant attitude; he was quite sartorial and that really brought something to the group. We looked good with great songs and great lyrics and by 1985 it felt like we were really becoming a band.”

At the end of the year they recorded their debut session for John Peel, a must-do for any aspiring young band of the time. The band were, in their own words, naïve and had a producer who once played in Moot the Hoople and wasn’t for taking advice for any young upstarts. Yet, it worked. That seminal session, played late at night on Radio One, included four tracks as per tradition, namely ‘I Love You’, ‘Crystal Crescent’, ‘Subterranean’ and ‘Aftermath’.

According to Gillespie the songs from this era had a “lovesick, melancholic yearning to them”. In his 2021 bio, Tenement Kid, Gillespie describes where he was at when penning now legendary songs such as ‘Gentle Tuesday’ and ‘All Fall Down’: “They are written and sung by a young, depressed boy who views life from a pained, detached, cynical position. The desperation of life and love weighs heavily on the mind.”

In early 1986 the new line-up recorded three tracks for a single which was led by ‘Crystal Crescent’, but it was one of the two B-sides that took precedence. ‘Velocity Girl’ was chosen as the opening track for the feted soundtrack to the scene, C86. Its status is such that it would later provide the name for an American band and was covered by the Manic Street Preachers. It lasts a mere 1:22, barely enough to have three verses and a chorus that closes it off. Gillespie’s plaintive voice is illuminating almost immediately as he trots off now familiar lines: “Here she comes again/ With vodka in her veins/ Been playing with a spike/ She couldn't get it right”.

Its brevity was in keeping with the time-consciousness of the band: the 16 tracks clock in at a grand total of 35 minutes. That’s the equivalent of one Fela Kuti EP.

They were now truly gaining the attention of London’s movers and shakers and recorded a second session for John Peel and one for Janice Long both within a month of each other. Long, at that time, preceded Peel on weeknights on Radio One with the equivalent level of enthusiasm for new music as the veteran DJ.

All eight session tracks are featured on Reverberations with the Long session kicking off the album. These sessions would introduce songs such as ‘Imperial’, ‘Leaves’ and ‘Tomorrow Ends Today’.

A year on and the band’s debut album Sonic Flower Groove was released. Critics liked it or hated it. One reviewer described it as a real gem, another dubbed it “dandelion fluff" and made up of leftover tracks. But as this review on this site noted (here), it is an underrated classic which “I find easy to play over and over, and discover new chimes or riffs to enjoy each time.” 

Many of the session tracks appeared on Sonic Flower Groove and benefit (or fail!) from having proper production techniques. Some of the session tracks sound like they were done in a garage with equipment bought in bargain shops.

During the recording sessions for the album McGurk was sacked, St John left, and after its release Beattie quit too and formed Spirea X (the title of the other ‘Crystal Crescent’ B-side). Things were far from hunky dory in the Primals camp. But with new faces came a different attitude and sound.

The band evolved initially into a rocky, Stones type act with the eponymous second album (reviewed here) that came out in 1989, and then, of course, captured the essence of the summer of 1990 and the so-called ‘baggy’ scene and subsequent superstardom. They reinvent themselves at virtually every turn and have never been afraid to change colours when it suited. 

It is that long-term success that has largely cast a shadow over their initial work. But this formative period should never be overlooked in the development stream of Primal Scream. Thankfully, we now have a collection of beautiful and mesmerising songs that remind us of what promise and ability they possessed in those heady days of the mid-80s.