Fearing that what can soberly be said about Frank Black's new double-release would be too predictable to bear, I had the following discussion transcribed from a séance during which I asked my spiritual trainer Skye-Wraith Higgins to conjure the 15-year-old me and spin the new Frank Blacks for both versions of us:
Crusty Reviewer at Current Age: Frank's back, twice, and he's pissed! Sort of. When he's not striking a world-weary geetar-schlub pose, I mean. But it's about time he started stomping around in response to how every loud band since the 90s has been paying their bills with his dynamic chops. I remember once when I's working in a record store and 'the guy' from Better Than Ezra, one of the poppiest Pixies pilferers, came in and bought R.E.M.'s Murmur and the first Smiths album. We can only hope they were backup copies.
Virginal Reviewer at Fifteen: I know R.E.M.! "That's me in the corner... That's me in the spot... light..." Hey, what's the music playing now? Sounds like a less well-produced Black Francis.
Crusty: He's been Frank Black for a weird while now. He released two stellar CDs eons ago on 4AD, which eased us into his solo career like a parent slowly explaining a divorce. But then he came out with a CD on American Recordings that had Microsoft Paintbrush cover art and took two years to get into. Then he birthed a merely okay handful of records with a backup band named the Catholics.
Crusty: Well, the word has other meanings, but at the time it was a kind of interesting choice. Retaining the name now, I guess, requires a nugget of moxie.
Crusty: You don't want to know. The backup band the Catholics has been stalwart, but Black's albums with them have been kind of monotone, with lengthy, invasive solos that seem to provide loaf-breaks for Black. And the cover art has been, and still is, heinous. I don't want to sound petty, but those 4AD Pixies covers seemed three-dimensional even on cassette inserts. Black's current lame packaging is the worst on spinART. These albums look like the homemade tour-comps of an unsigned band.
Virgin: This can't be Black Francis playing. It's too... conventional. The Pixies were like astronaut-punk. This is like that Costello crap that those rich jagoffs at gifted camp loved.
Crusty: I wouldn't go that far, but then again I'm just a you who's been compromised by time. These two albums contain exceptional verse-chorus-verse songs, and the distance from great track to great track is never farther than a few minutes. Black's the rare elder statesman who occasionally remembers how to rock-- he's a not-boring Mould/Westerberg! I mean it, he comes alive on these albums, sounding passionate and bothered in ways he hasn't in a while, reminding us that he can still be heard haunting some great modern work by Modest Mouse and the White Stripes.
Crusty: Shhh. Let the adult talk. The 65-minute, 18-song Black Letter Days showcases all of Black's known skills and even hones some new ones. It opens and closes with different version of Tom Waits' "The Black Rider"-- one's a Satan's-cruise-ship ditty; the other's a surf-organ nightmare. Then, halfway through, Black tosses country in the mix and songs emerge with Gibb Brothers falsettos, Van Morrison beltings, even Paul Simon pluckiness. "I Will Run After You" could have been a Doolittle b-side. And try escaping the bouncy "Chip Away Boy" or the balladeering "Cold Heart of Stone".
Virgin: Since when is sounding like the Gibb Brothers or Paul Simon a good thing? This stuff is stale. What the hell happened to this guy? Just last night the Pixies hosted Postmodern MTV, pretending to be telepathic! They just smiled at the camera during prerecorded vocal segues. They premiered the "Here Comes Your Man" video... and this trad-poof is all Frank Francis can muster now?
Crusty: I hear you. But if nothing else, Frank's 33-minute Devil's Workshop is the punchy record that should have followed Teenager of the Year. It's full of that ching-a-ling radio sound he debuted a few times on The Cult of Ray. "Out of State" is sweet and driving, and "Modern Age" is a close-to-complacent shout-out to surrealism and post-70s rock.
Virgin: Ching-a-ling don't cut it, there, Ace. Why hasn't he taken more chances with the recipe? This is what old people listen to on their way to work in the morning.
Crusty: Old is how you're gonna feel when the indie-crop is too green to have bought a Pixies album when it was new, or to have even gone through an ex-post-facto phase. Be glad you're getting a taste of Devil's Workshop. The set's so unilaterally catchy that your head becomes like a bus station crowded with singing schizophrenics. The solos are incorporated into the songs' structures instead of being these ham-jammy interludes where the song stops for some reeeooowwll. Who besides Frank Black sounds cool when he whines?
Crusty: 'Dross...' I like that. Getting ready for the SAT already. No wonder only the stepdaughters of bible-study leaders liked us. But back to Black: the problem-- the big hence-my-rating problem-- is the production. The listener wishes that Frank and his posse (of six on Days, four on Workshop, with cameos by Joey Santiago and ex-Wall of Voodoo frontman Stan Ridgway) were more patient and gave these albums a semblance of a soundscape. Some guitar separation or cavernous drums, something besides the straight-to-stereo/mono crank-out. They robbed themselves of foreverness. Just listen to the difference the shimmery pedal steel makes on "Valentine and Garuda" and "Southbound Bevy".
Crusty: That 'country shit' is going to help you through many a night, chum. I want you to buy an album by a group called Palace Brothers as soon as it comes out. And start doing sit-ups now. We've inherited Pappy's subtle man-boobs and they're getting harder to fend off.
Crusty: The modern age may not be as dandy as Frank Black proclaims it to be, what with the brink of global catastrophe and all, but these at-least-solid platters save us from having to watch E!'s "The Pixies Curse" Special right after the one about "Family Feud".
