Album Review: Pixies - Head Carrier

It must be frustrating being a Pixie, living up to expectations set by an increasingly ultracrepidarian audience who can't legitimately claim to have been there when Debaser and Gigantic exploded them unto the world via Kurt Cobain's public adulation.

The iconic singles are easily recognised, their early albums regularly canonised, but since reestablishing as an ongoing body culminating in 2014's awkward Indie Cindy LP, Pixies' regrowth seemed stunted.

Here then is Frank Black, Joey Santiago and Dave Lovering trying to make peace with Kim Deal's departure (causing turbulence that made Indie Cindy such an unsettling ride) and finding stability with new bassist Paz Lenchantin who finally jiggles into place like a slightly imperfectly sawn jigsaw piece. All I Think About Now's very deliberate Where Is My Mind dopplegangery gives way to Lenchantin's cooing vocals. Hear also the title track wherein Black defeatedly accepts he's falling "down the drain again" before spitting out the two-word chorus like Satan sneezing from hay fever, then his throat cops an utter flogging on Baal's Back in which he does his best Brian Johnson (note to AC/DC: Axl may sell tickets, but Frank could be really interesting.) If the bigger picture is a patchwork of old tricks sewn together with refocussed enthusiasm, then Pixies 2016 are less loudQUIETloud and more ROUGHsweetROUGH.

Head Carrier proves a reshaped Pixies can work even when they're ripping their own records off. Might be time for some new tricks though.