FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| CD REVIEW FRANK BLACK AND THE CATHOLICS · This 12-song offering from the ex-darkman of The Pixies was recorded live to two track in three days. Guitars that slouch along with the tear-away vocals, lyrics that race forward in narratives about accidents and porno stores and suffering through love that's a cancer; perhaps you'd like a little ebony with your sunrise today? Frank Black goes back, all the way back to the days when The Pixies were a carnival of dark jubilation, like a sliver acquired in your foot as you were dancing away in a tetanus shot of fever. Freed from the chains of overthought and tunnel-like production that closed in on his earlier solo offerings, Black swims freely ahead while skinny dipping in the pool of his past. The songs sound like they woke up still drunk from the night before, singed by the party, now worldly, wiser, but ready to do it all again. With the elements of a car crash, they smoke, bleed and cry in a catastrophe of twisted metal and vocals from the gut, and are unrepentant about any misjudgments that may have led to their being. 4/5 |