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T O P I C R E V I E W
Ten Percenter
Posted - 10/29/2004 : 03:12:35 I think this is the worst review yet - Frank has obviously run out of ideas and new songs. I wonder what Mr Schild will make of the Honeycomb sesions release, whenever it sees the light of day?:
It’s official: Frank Black, Black Francis, Frank Black Francis or whatever Charles Thomas is calling himself these days, has officially run out of ideas.
As everyone knows, most certainly including Frank Black, the world suffers from a slight case of Pixies-reunion hysteria, and if we can’t have that elusive new Pixies record, at least a similar Frank Black rocker would do. Instead, he shuts off the bone machine, enlists a couple Pale Boys to re-record Pixies numbers and throws out a curve ball that doesn’t sound remotely like anything in Black’s long career. New songs? Heck, he can’t even muster them for The Pixies. Why waste material on his flagging solo career?
The songs he reheats on Frank Black Francis sound, unsurprisingly, more like Pale Boys oddities than Pixies’ alt-rock blueprints. Re-imagined more than a decade after the fact, Black’s new versions make little sense in the context of the Pixies/Black continuum, and even less in the shadow of a Pixies reunion that’s been, to be uncommonly charitable, more concerned with hocking soundboard recordings than heading into a studio.
In the liner notes, Black ponders whether fans will call him to task for “messing with the gospel.” Preservationist streaks aren’t at issue – these are his songs, to tweak as he sees fit – but the simple fact that his new versions just aren’t very good, and not in the “I wish this was The Pixies” way, either. Black and company rework his songs for a sleepy, drugged-up feel that sounds more like a half-baked college pop band trying its hand at post-psychedelic freakouts. “Cactus” mixes sparse acoustic strumming with the blub-blub of a too-distorted bass with overlapping vocal tracks and watery guitar extras to make it sound as if Black’s playing through the fog of a cough-syrup overdose. Keyboards that can’t decide whether they want to be whimsical or spooky hold a confusing version of “Monkey Gone to Heaven” together. “Subbacultcha” mutates into a bongo-rattled dirge that’s about as likeable as a sweaty gym sock.
Black does have a few triumphs on the album, however. A moody, horn-laden twist on “Nimrod’s Son,” sounds like an unlikely collaboration between Nick Cave and They Might Be Giants. Somehow, it works better on Frank Black Francis than it looks on paper. The Paxil-backed themes of “Where is My Mind” get put on top of haunting synthesizers and washes of studio noise that sound like they’re incidental music from a 1975 episode of Doctor Who. Even those tracks, however, are merely interesting oddities stuffed into a sea of rather questionable judgments.
The accompanying disc, a pre-Come On Pilgrim demo that captures Black and an acoustic guitar belting out Pixies numbers into a cassette recorder, doesn’t sweeten the deal. Intended solely to be a studio blueprint for producer Gary Smith, it’s essentially a bootleg-quality version of 15 early Pixies songs. It’s mildly entertaining, but, true to the spirit of this album, is certainly a fans-only sort of release.
- Matt Schild
"Fried food, cigarettes, no exercise, chest pain..." (Excerpt from the Angina Monologues)
2 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First)
Jamie
Posted - 10/29/2004 : 14:04:36 It seems like he's reviewing it as though it were the new Frank Black album rather than the mostly archival release that it is.
VoVat
Posted - 10/29/2004 : 11:57:18
quote:I think this is the worst review yet - Frank has obviously run out of ideas and new songs.
The body of the review isn't all that bad, but if Mr. Schild really thinks a project like this means Frank is out of ideas, he's not too bright. Did he think the same thing about the purple tape and the Wave of Mutilation greatest hits album?
