Black's first holy communion for post-Pixies fans

By Daniel McGarry

I'll just get it over with and say it: Frank Black is better than the Pixies ever were. Get over it already.

On Frank Black and the Catholics, his fourth post-Pixies masterpiece, Black couples the bleeding-raw energy of Surfer Rosa with the meticulous genius of Teenager of the Year. The 12-song product surpasses nearly every previous effort. The Pixies were gods, and Frank Black (a.k.a. Black Francis) the Zeus among them, so to say that this album is better than all their previous stuff is no light matter.

Alas, this is a delicate matter, and I won't go so far as to say that this is Black's best album. As if such a thing could be said. But Frank Black and the Catholics are older, wiser musicians than Black Francis and company ever were; they write and play with an immediacy and complexity the latter never approached. For all their brain-twisting brilliance, the Pixies were more of a one-trick pony than we like to admit.

The studied sonic intricacy, surprising stylistic variety, and just plain weirdness running through Black's first three solo albums have finally decided to shake their studio-rat malaise and venture into the garage once more. Those three infectious qualities are in no short supply on Frank Black and the Catholics, but then again, they weren't what kept his previous albums from enjoying the respect usually granted only to their Pixies predecessors. While records like Surfer Rosa and Doolittle found themselves continually soaking in pools of critic drool (and deservedly so), Frank's solo efforts have languished in a desert of poor distribution and critical apathy. The only plausible explanation (besides the nefarious activities of bigoted Kim Deal fans) is, of course, a government/alien conspiracy of unfathomable scope.

Not surprisingly, Frank Black and the Catholics nearly didn't exist--the release of something this good threatened to turn the so-called recording industry on its head. The album was recorded in three days, live to two-track with no overdubs (do you remember Hüsker Dü?) in March 1997. Then Black's U.S. record label, American Recordings, went bankrupt, and all manner of hardship ensued. But thanks to some very brave souls at a pair of independent labels, now, finally, anyone can buy what is likely the best record of 1998 at any store worth its salt (yes, Cutler's is one).

Oh yeah, so what does it sound like? If you like to rock and/or roll, you should have no complaints. Because of the album's shorter length, it doesn't approach the stylistic diversity of Teenager of the Year; FBATC's stylistic unity keeps it from being Black's best album ever. His songs always rely on storytelling, and Lyle Workman's guitar contributes as much to the narratives as Frank's own heavily armed vocals. Rarely has anyone matched the gravel-throated bawl and stuttering-drum vitality of "Back to Rome," and few ever will again. "King & Queen of Siam" manages to wrap fantasies of meeting dead rock stars (or something like that) around a shimmering guitar and bass interplay that leaves almost everything this side of Stevie Ray Vaughn in the Texas dust. In "Steak 'n' Sabre," Black's voice is like that of a pilot who keeps the turbulence his airplane is struggling through a secret from his passengers, who don't notice anything because it leaves their stomachs begging for more. Black had plenty of experience playing with convention as a Pixie; Frank Black and the Catholics makes his style sound more natural, like a virtual convention in itself. Did you ever think it otherwise? (SpinArt)

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