Pixies might not startle any more, but they do stay strong. As with 2022’s Doggerel, this album drops its bombs with honed precision, the band’s experience evident as both the key musical genres – loud and quiet – are deployed with scorching smarts.
The tenth from the Boston bruisers is their fifth without Kim Deal, and Emma Richardson (Band Of Skulls) now replaces Paz Lenchantin, bringing the bass and backing vocals. Black Francis’s songwriting still uses a Frankenstein’s monster technique, bolting incongruous ideas together, but his beasts have a slow-reveal beauty.
Surrealism survives in lines that shouldn’t spark but in Pixiesworld do: ‘I’ve broken my leg back in Las Vegas, but they were so gracious I doubled my wages,’ he offers on anthem-to-be The Vegas Suite.
Joey Santiago’s sparkling, vigorous guitar fills bedeck the ballast, and as Primrose purrs or Motoroller swirls, Pixies again prove that class and sass are permanent.
