|
Ten Percenter
- FB Enquirer -
United Kingdom
1733 Posts |
 Posted - 09/30/2003 : 01:57:30
|
A 4 star review by Tom Hannan (undated) - don't think this has been posted yet:
album: 'show me your tears' (cooking vinyl)
brief description: legendary ex-pixies main-man serves up a stormer
year: 2003
Charles Thompson’s list of ‘things to do today’, circa January 1987, read something like this – 1) Reinvent music. 2) Lunch…
With the Pixies, for four brief, revolutionary years, he was able to put a hefty cross through number one. Then, he somewhat drew a blank. Already changing his name to Black Francis for band duties, upon disbanding the Pixies he reversed the moniker, ending up as Frank Black – no longer the master of all-shouting, all-distorting, US-alternative music, but a man more fond of everything from ridiculous short punk-songs to derivative, slow country and western. His career has been spent tackling this question – when you’ve reinvented guitar music, just what exactly do you do next?
If you’re Kim Deal, you form the Breeders. If you’re Mr Black, you retort from every criticism with ‘fine - you write ‘Surfer Rosa’ then!’ And it works. But let’s come out and say it – bar some early highlights (his self-titled debut and ‘Teenager of the Year’), his solo output has been decidedly hit and miss. ‘Show Me Your Tears’, however, pierces the bull’s-eye.
He’s doing what others before him have done already, but, this time, he’s on a par with them, instead of just acting as a mere imitator. It’s the first FB & the C’s album in a while to sound like it’s taken some time to write, and Frank’s first truly great effort to sit up there with American songwriting greats such as, wait for it, Dylan and Young.
You think he’d be happier about it, but no; according to him, this is a record of ‘thirteen big, salty tears, like thirteen little black dogs just born… ready to howl at the world.’
He’s right when he says there isn’t a happy song in the bunch, but that’s the fault of his morose lyrics, not the Catholics’ strangely up-tempo backdrops (listen to ‘Jaina Blues’ and try not to smile). At times though, yes, it’s just bitter, broken stuff – the opening ‘Nadine’ is jammed with such rocking regret it’s enough to turn Hugh Hefner to celibacy, and ‘New House Of The Pope’ a strong candidate for the most bizarre, dark drinking song in many years.
It’s such a wonderful feeling to have Frank back at his best (also good to hear former co-Pixie Joey Santiago laying down some licks here and there), even if he insists on being so miserable about it. ‘Everything Is New’ is the sequel to Springsteen’s ‘The River’ with added keyboards and sliding guitars, whilst the awesome ‘Massif Centrale’, with its gremlin-like falsetto and bass-heavy, unpredictable direction rates as not only the best track on the album, but also a highlight of a career chock full of them.
There’s the sweet lament of ‘Coastline’, the heavily country-flavoured ‘Goodbye Lorraine’ and a host of other reasons why you should let ‘Show Me Your Tears’ into your life. Although you might be expecting more in the way of punch, you’ll have to admit that feeling isn’t something it lacks, only the unnecessary ‘The Snake’ letting down an otherwise fantastic record.
By the time the epic closer ‘Manitoba’ has breathed its last emphatic breath, all thoughts of that Pixies reunion Frank mentioned a few weeks ago are forgotten in a rush to press the play button again. For ‘SMYT’ is an acquired taste, one that becomes you as the record unfolds. Yet, as Frank Black puts it himself – ‘you’re never going to like one of my damn records if you only listen to it once.’
No man is an island, unless he is in the bath |
|
Topic Locked
