Bossanova
It's not a good sign that they open the album
with an instrumental. I don't really like instrumentals. In
fact, they always feel like filler to me. If you absolutely
have to do an instrumental, stick it at track seven where it's
not going to do any damage. As it stands, I usually skip right
to the second track, "Rock Music," which is a bit
of an atonal screecher from Black Francis. Oy, finally at track
three they start to hit their stride with the oddball space
odyssey, "Velouria." The echo and reverb does make
me a little homesick for the crunching production of Surfer
Rosa, but I have to move on. This thing starts to fee like
an Ed Wood movie at some point. I'm not really sure why. They
do certainly sound more mature on this album, which is usually
a euphemism for sounding tired. It's more weary than anything
else. I'm sure this is the one on which they were fighting on
a daily basis, and Francis was slowly absorbing the whole band
into his sizable girth. Don't get me wrong, there is still good
stuff on this album, but it just doesn't have that urgency that
their earlier stuff had. It's as if their batteries just wore
down a little bit. |
Come on Pilgrim
I'm not sure what's up with all the foreign
language stuff, but this debut by a weird college art rock band
is stunning in its pure energy and innovative take on punk.
Black Francis has his anxious, high-pitched thing going on,
with Kim Deal's echoey backing vocals and the funny Western
ghost thing happening, with the mix of Spanish and English and
general feeling of the American West permeating their songs
(despite being from Mass). The thing is a little scattered,
and a tiny bit one-noted, but it's a solid debut that certainly
hints at awesome things to come. "Losing my penis to a
whore with disease!" is a line that should at least make
you want to listen to more. |
Death to the Pixies |
Doolittle
"Debaser" is my second favorite
Pixies song. I f'n love it. I will play it on any jukebox I
find just to piss people off. It's a great, great song. And
it starts off what is actually my second favorite Pixies album
(a close second to Surfer Rosa). I mean, they're such
art fags writing a punk song about a Dali film. It's nerd heaven,
and I am their disciple. They really do reign in the craziness
on this album, smoothing out some of the angles and rough edges
in favor of excellent song writing and more subdued production
(anything is subdued after having Albini twiddle the knobs).
Deal's bass is still the driving force behind these songs, and
Black Francis is coming into his own as more than a yelper.
It's actually funny to hear him sing. He's pretty good. Who
can resist "Here Comes Your Man," really? This is
the record that made them the muscular R.E.M.
They were the college rock gods for the coastal carnivore set.
It practically looked like Francis ate Michael Stipe in that
first real video of theirs. |
Surfer Rosa
From the opening downbeat of "Bone Machine,"
Surfer Rosa's first track, you know this album is gonna kick
some ass. Driven by the radical production of Steve Albini (can
this guy make even a shit sandwich sound good?), this album
is all up in your face. And despite there being a lot to grab
onto here, this thing is still all knees and elbows. Black Francis
talk/sings/yelps his way through song after song filled with
skulls and body parts and illusions to things near and far.
There's terror and humor, and even a softer side of a band that
would just as soon give you a hotfoot as spit something vile
in your eye. Everything they do on this album just has an edge
of smart to it. They aren't your daddy's punk band giving the
middle finger and farting into the mic; they're the thinking
man's college rock band. Oddly enough it's actually the Kim
Deal sung song, "Gigantic" that kind of steals the
show here. Like her song with The
Breeders, "Cannonball," of a few years later,
this thing just sticks in your head and begs for you to hit
repeat. I know I wanted to marry her after hearing it. Even
"Where Is My Mind" points to Frank
Black's later career direction and shows us that these guys
are not one-trick ponies. One of the best pure pop punk albums
of all time, and certainly my favorite Pixies record. |
Trompe le Monde
They've obviously turned the page here. Where
as Bossanova sounded tired, Trompe le Monde
sounded refreshed. Refreshed—but different. It's Black Francis
emerging from his cocoon as Frank
Black, shedding Kim and Joey and Whathisface as he moved
on. He's a guy who loves outer space, and this album has it
in spades. What it doesn't have is a lot of Kim Deal vocals
(shame, really) and her spare bass lines. But back arethe more
driving beats, the energy and the feeling that somebody gives
a shit. It's the album that Frank had obviously been itching
to make for years. Again, I really don't love the production
on this thing, as everything seems to be buried in reverb and
whatnot, but it's a much better output than you'd generally
see from a break-up album. Of course the year after this came
out was also my sophomore year at Syracuse when we lost to UMASS
in the NCAA tourney, and every Masshole from here to the end
of time screamed "It's educationaaaaaaaaaaal!" up
and down the halls. Or maybe that was just in my head. It makes
me wonder what the hell the Violent
Femmes would sound like if they had continued on. Probably
like crap. |
Musical Connections:
Black Francis
The Breeders
Frank Black
|
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