REVIEWS:
The brainchild of songwriter Chris O' Connor, Primitive Radio Gods is an underrated one-man project that will probably go down in music history as a one-hit wonder, scoring a hit with that song featuring a 'long phone' booth title and a B.B. King vocal sample. As far as I know, Rocket was the Gods' only album, released in 1995.
--Nick Karn
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COMMENTS
primitiveradiogods.info...new album, new site
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
As good as Primitive Radio Gods' only hit, the atmospheric, lyrically intriguing and hauntingly melodic techno-ish ballad "Standing In A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand", may be, Rocket is in a sense a very misunderstood, straight ahead rock song collection with very solid hooks, intelligent and well-written lyrics with an almost indie-like vibe to the recording (some voice samples and background noises are thrown in the mix as well), and this one man act will most likely remain the songwriter who always had the "Phone Booth" song (which, to be perfectly honest does not even come remotely close to fitting this album at all) requested at his concerts, while all the rest of his material was ignored.
The 'rest' of his material here is of pretty good quality - not exactly generic, stale alternative here, because the sound is kind very satisfying and not obviously derivative, so it's very surprising that some of the other songs here didn't make some kind of impact. Of all songs, it's actually the bitter political rant "Motherfucker" that sounds most like a serious pop gem (a brilliant chorus and great angry verses) - it never had a chance because of its' title, of course. "Chain Reaction" grooves along like some twisted kind of indie funk, and "Skin Turns Blue" has a memorable chorus and thought-provoking lyrics dealing with racism, while "Are You Happy?" and "Who Say" are other melodic standouts. The closing title track, meanwhile, has this moody sense of finality to it which makes the song really work.
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