The Pixies finally started releasing new music, after more than twenty years of relative silence (their last full album, Trompe Le Monde, came out in 1991)!!! Three EPs containing 12 songs, of which they’ve already released nine videos! All twelve songs will be combined on a full-length called Indie Cindy later in 2014, but I won’t get it, because I’ve been buying the EPs as they came out (couldn’t get EP1, as it was sold out by the time I caught on, but I bought EP2 and EP3 the first days they became available through Pixies.com). I liked the first two very much, the third one is a bit of a dud, though (with only three new songs – “Bagboy” is the fourth song on the EP, but it had been released as a free single at the end of June, 2013 as the Pixies’ first new song since “Bam Thwok” in 2004…
Funnily enough, none of the nine videos (so far) seem to show any band members, just stand-ins. Oh well…
EP1 – As I always say… any day that the Pixies release a new song is a good day, and on September 2nd, 2013, the band came through and released EP1, with four totally brand new songs on it! The songs are “Andro Queen”, “Another Toe In The Ocean”, “Indie Cindy” and “What Goes Boom”. They’ve also (eventually) released a video for each song!!
Andro Queen is a wonderful, trippy song, fully of zooming atmospherics and very catchy, with a bit of Spanish thrown in. The video is also trippy, with its mixture of tiger-helmet band and town and country and party touring images. Oh, and there’s a tattooed queen in it too.
Another Toe In The Ocean is a great high-momentum tune that is very catchy and full of sweeping guitar sounds and a driving pulse (and, of course, the phrase “another toe” does remind me of The Big Lebowski…). The video is animated, and shows a not-so-chunky Frank Black running around town, riding with cats, fighting ninjas, and going on trippy adventures. It just gets weirder and weirder and it totally hilarious!!
Indie Cindy slows things down with some cool minor riffs that sound like something from Surfer Rosa, ranting and raving things like “you put the cock in cocktail, man, well I put the tail in WAIT!” There’s a slow chorus; this is a really awesome song. The video describes some kind of teenage bar time adventure, but it’s shown backwards and forwards and it’s hard to follow the narrative; the ending is very dark. Probably need to watch this one twice.
What Goes Boom is a rockin’ hard number that is near metallic, maybe more like something from Trompe Le Monde, with soft Frank Black vocals, and wild guitar mannerisms. The video shows moon-like desert scenery, and people wandering over it, it might be Cappadocia in Turkey. Beautiful. There’s also some spontaneous human combustion. Yuck!
Overall, a great release, with each song good in its own way! EP2 is also very good, by the way, it’s only EP3 that is a bit of a dud…
Of course, the got four trippy videos, one for each song on this EP:
PWP2
EP2 – As I always say… any day that the Pixies release a new song is a good day, and on January 3rd, 2014, the band came through and released EP2, with four songs on it! The songs are “Blue Eyed Hexe”, “Magdalena”, “Greens and Blues” and “Snakes”. I immediately bought the limited edition vinyl and MP3 download from their website and am listening to the MP3s now as I await for my vinyl to arrive (it only becomes available on Amazon on January 13th, man). Yay! They also have videos for all four songs. In 2014 they will release a third EP (with three new songs, alongside the “Bagboy” single), and eventually release the 12 songs from the three EPs on a single CD. They also (eventually) released one video for each song, as they had for EP1 (and will probably do so for EP3).
For now, let’s consider the songs:
Blue Eyed Hexe has attributes of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and the Pixies, which I see as a good thing. The song really rocks on and on and has everything in it that makes the Pixies great – huge riffs, a wild chorus, weirdness, angularity, and nutty guitar effects (no Spanish, though). Plus it has a cool title (and what is a “Hexe” anyway?)! The video for “Blue Eyed Hexe” is a bunch of cut-up images that are often drawn upon, sort of stop-motion animation with found images, starting with images of blue-eyed girls (if their eyes aren’t blue, they’re colored blue with a river of blue ink), religious images (Christian, or Satanic), more eyes that fill with ink, anatomical illustrations, skulls, flowers, only one or two pictures of Frank Black, newspaper clippings, often faster than the eye can process. The rest of the band doesn’t appear. Funky. Directed by Mount Emult. But the song is the best on the EP.
Magdalena is another song about a girl – so it joins “Velouria”, “Ana”, “Alison” and “Cecilia Ann”, all from Bossanova – and it even sort of sounds like all of them, slowed down to a certain pace, with haunting wails. The video follows the wanderings of a tall, troubled transvestite with long hair (his face and identity is obscured for some time by lighting, angles, etc). Great shot of rice falling over his head in purple light. Nice.
Greens And Blues is a somewhat interesting mellow strummer with a catchy chorus and some loud-quiet-loud. The video shows a very fat man who resembles Black Francis (but probably isn’t him) wandering around town with a spray paint can, checking out the beach, tripping on the blue sky, etc. Also, there’s an astronaut girl wandering around. Interesting how there’s a lot of green and blue in the artwork of EP2 and EP3 – is this a theme?
Snakes is a simple guitar song, sometimes dark and sometimes bright, with a goofy chorus: “Snakes are coming to your town, in tunnels underground, some traveling over ground…” Angular guitar solo, of course. Nutty, but hey – it sounds great! The video is very disturbing, showing a national pogrom against papier mache-headed men, and candy Nazis. Yes, that’s right – candy Nazis!
Like EP1, this is a great release! It’s only EP3 that’s a bit of a letdown.
EP2 - As I always say… any day that the Pixies release a new song is a good day, and on March 25th, 2014, the band came through and released EP3, with four songs on it! The songs are “Bagboy”, “Silver Snail”, “Ring The Bells” and “Jamie Bravo”. It was released as a digital download some days later.
Bagboy starts off with some weird mix-around stuff that’s not very nice. But by the time you hit the big Kim Deal chorus you know “ah… this is a Pixies song!!” The video shows a kid trashing his parents’ house, not so great.
Silver Snail is a slow and spooky song that really lets you hear Black Francis’ vocals prominently. Very nice. There’s a comic book store in Toronto called Silver Snail, I bet the guys who work there are stoked about this one!
Ring The Bells is a sweet little pop song, it doesn’t sound like the Pixies at all. Maybe a less boring version of Coldplay?
Jamie Bravo is another pop song, although it is a bit more “angular” than “Ring The Bells”.
I’d say that this is the dullest of the EPs, with no standout tracks, and an over-reliance on pop songs; “Silver Snail” is probably the best song on the album. “Bagboy” has been out for quite a while as well, and it’s not as good as something like “Blue Eyed Hexe”, which is a truly remarkable tune! But, well, what can you say – it’s the Pixies!!
I suppose that they’ll release videos of all four of these songs, but for now here’s “Bagboy”: