Even in slacker moments an animus of tension and anger moves the record forward. "She Took All the Money"'s "shama lama ding dang" chorus is pushed forward by an irritable rhythm guitar, surprisingly sweet backing vocals from Violet Clark, and some impatient drumming that takes the song out on just the right dry note.
So: what makes it a Black Francis work? There are some descriptive touchstones — screaming, odd meters, UFOs, Lou Reed as Surrealist lyrics — that are ultimately insufficient to describe what's going on here. What this is is nothing more than the rebirth of Charles Thompson, his musical juices revitalized by the 2004 tour with the Pixies. As he says in the publicity notes for the album, reunions "are bittersweet, and all of the rekindled foreplay of performing the old Black Francis songs never warmed to the full coitus of a reunion LP ... I privately went back to the old stage name ... almost as a joke. I couldn't get the Pixies back into the studio, but I would transform into my alter ego of yesteryear." And even if there is no Herman Brood revival as a result of this LP — Wikipedia provides only a Google image search link to his artwork, and only one compilation of his music is available in the usual download sources — the transgressive junkie artist/musician/suicide deserves some posthumous credit for waking up Black Francis and sending him out screaming into the light of 2007.
Article comments
1 - Connie Phillips
Timothy, What a wonderful review! I really need to check this disc out. Thanks.