When ‘The Adam And Joe Show’’s Vinyl Justice paid a visit to Charles Thompson (aka Frank Black) to look over his record collection (a pre-iTunes collection of CDs efficiently stored in a carry case) he joked that he only listened to the Pixies when – ahem! – shaking hands with the governor of love. Masturbating or not, time back in that band has reignited his passion for their detuned melodic punk, so much so that he’s back to his old Pixies stage name for this first ever Black Francis LP.
His last solo albums, ‘Honeycomb’ and ‘Fast Man Raider’, were soulful, alt-country through and through, juicy crumbs of which remain here, but this is mostly the noisy, low-slung garage (minus the surf-rock and Latin sounds) that he’s so closely aligned with. He’s even back on king-screamer duties, belting out songs inspired by Herman Brood, a cult Dutch musician and artist who threw himself from a roof in 2001 – he’s back to humour-heavy darkness in a ‘slicing up eyeballs’-style, then. Even if this isn’t up to Pixies standard, it’s abrasive stuff that reveals who the likes of shouty oddballs such as Brakes owe it to. Sure, there’s none of that ‘Doolittle’-issue hooky alt-magic – in fact, some songs are wishy-washy and demo-like, especially the Babyshambles-shit ‘Angels Come To Comfort You’. But this will remind you just who Black Francis is.
