Many consider the Pixies the Platonic ideal of a certain hardcore-pop style, of which copious transitory doppelgangers are merely cast shadows. But for every gross of mediocre Pixies imitators, there's a band that builds upon their legacy by appending their own specific sensibility to it. It's prudent to note that these echoes are not usually the result of blatant imitation; rather, they're born from a genuine love and admiration for a work that inflamed the imaginations of so many people.
All art is some permutation of, or comment upon, the art its creator has internalized; what's crucial is that something is added to the mix. Without the Pixies' ascendancy, we wouldn't have the Nirvana we know. The same goes for Mclusky, who impressed their own distinct thumbprint and range of other influences on the Pixies' style. And we probably wouldn't have Pidgeon's excellent marriage of boy/girl singing, shredded screaming, indie-pop, and blistering thrashcore-- the mansion they've built upon the foundation the Pixies laid by assimilating their own influences into a unique style.
San Francisco's Pidgeon concoct the unruly, melodic cacophony of their debut, From Gutter w/Love, with three vocalists (a female singer, a male screamer/singer, and a male screamer), three guitars, bass and drums. The opening song on their debut, "The Second One", proves the accuracy of their self-proclaimed Cardigans/Motorhead/Pixies triangulation with its simmering drums and deep, piston-like bass, crisp shifts in volume and intensity, growling guitars that feint and leap, and a breathy, contagious vocal melody sporadically shattered by black metal shrieks-- indie pop injected with dangerous, illegal drugs and mutating uncontrollably.
"Strelnikov" weaves singer Valerie Iwamasa's dulcet upper-register through a flurry of spacious, contrapuntal guitar arpeggios and dense segments of puissant thrash. The staid "Powerful" begins with an ominous, cyclical guitar figure and spare reverb before expanding into a tangle of chugging, staccato Kim Dealisms, followed by the propulsive, Surfer Rosa-ish anthem "Down". The triple-negative pep-pill "Ain't Nothing Can't" and the woozy string bends of "Fallout" are akin to The Wrens' haywire, seasick pop techniques, and the bastard ska of "Sty" is riddled with prolix, rapid-fire ranting that complements the euphonious pop vocals that it jostles against elsewhere on the record.
Truly new ideas are rare. New combinations of old ones are a more realistic benchmark of quality. When one band sounds just like another band, it's natural for us to balk. But when a band sounds like a hybrid of several bands, filtered through their own specific lens, it seems fair to say they only sound like themselves. If Pidgeon sticks around long enough to build a body of work and cement themselves in enough minds to be reference-worthy, some years down the road, I may find myself referring to them to describe a new band that has imbibed their aesthetic. It's not just pop that will eat itself; art, in general, is a cannibal. Dig in.
