Pixies

Sounding a bit more polished this time out, the Pixies forgo some of the blistering weirdness that populated their first records. Surf music and alien references pop in and point the band toward some new realm of strangeness. "Velouria," "Ana," "Rock Music" and "Down to the Well" are some of their best tracks.

Doolittle' – The Pixies' third album and big-label debut – was one of 1989's most acclaimed
releases; it garnered truckloads of critical hosannas for its disturbing, dizzying variations
on alternative-guitar-rock themes. For the follow-up, the Boston foursome could have kept
drawing from the same well, but Bossanova is a pretty far cry from its predecessor. This
time, the Pixies have left certain of their attention-grabbing college-band antics... More >

Though the words are less willful, they're still mostly indecipherable without the crib sheet and still mostly incomprehensible with it--leisure-class kiddies grasping at straws (or women: Black Francis has gone through three girlfriends by cut five) as the solar system bangs and whimpers to a halt. But these collegians are obscurantists no longer. Announcing their newfound religious faith with a surf-metal instrumental ("Cecilia Ann," who's not a girlfriend though Francis loves her best of all), they march out tunes so simple and confident and power riffs so grandly declamatory that you learn to understand the choruses by singing them. The beats are lively. The three-minute songs don't bash you over the head with their punk/pop brevity. Neither do the two-minute songs. If they weren't still a little gothic-surrealist they might even be too easy--but they ain't. (Grade - A)