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Ten Percenter
- FB Enquirer -
United Kingdom
1733 Posts |
 Posted - 08/29/2003 : 03:02:14
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Apologies if this has already been posted (Australian Financial Times!), another positive review:
Show Me Your Tears. Frank Black and The Catholics (Shock. 8.5 stars): Frank was supposed to tour here but was postponed, maybe to February next year when he might also bring the Catholics for company. On the strength of this it would be something not to miss. If you like authentic American rockers like John Hiatt and Dave Alvin, then Frank, who tasted a heap of success with The Pixies, is your man. Superbly wrapped in a dense swathe of guitars, bass and drums, Frank works his way with relish through a baker's dozen of sanguine, gritty tunes which, as he adroitly puts it, "are thirteen big, salty tears. Like thirteen little black dogs just born, still in their sacs, about to wake up, ready to howl at the world. There isn't a happy song in this bunch." With influences that include Lou Reed and Iggy Pop (hear The Snake), David Bowie and the Beatles, Black sounds like Dave Graney but with depth. He's an inspired writer and there are a ton of snappy couplets on this album and every line is worth the ink. Musically, it's a peach - cunning use of instruments such as harmonica, bleery sax, lots of piano -- and a masterful construction of songs. His smarts are obvious everywhere in touches such as the ambiguous meter in This Old Heartache - it sounds like one song has fractured into two. Clever but not slick - in fact, that's Frank all over. This is really solid, inventive mainstream guitar rock exactly as you'd like a cult hero to produce. These days when people ask what I'm listening to, one of the names is Frank Black.
No man is an island, unless he is in the bath |
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