The beginning of the end (Bossanova - Pixies)

Member Name: PatFox

Product:	Bossanova - Pixies
Date:	25/03/01 (153 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Their most approachable work, a couple of good tracks

Disadvantages: Just not a patch on the promise of previous albums

After having my life totally turned around by 'Surfer Rosa', and falling deeper under the Pixies' spell with 'Doolittle', 'Bossanova' came as something of a letdown. A band that had almost single handedly saved guitar rock from the clutches of the poodle metallers had started to falter.

If 'Rosa was the most energetic of their albums, and Doolittle the most accomplished, Bossanova is the most laid-back. Wispy tracks like 'Havalina' and 'Velouria' (which made a half-hearted stab at the charts, in the wake of the success of 'Monkey Gone to Heaven') are poppy but uninspiring. The slower numbers -- 'Is she Wierd', 'Stormy Weather' and 'Ana' -- are wearied and underpowered.

The Pixies, it seems, had started to crumble during Doolittle -- due at least in part to Kim Deal's drinking problems -- and by now was beginning to turn into merely a backing band for Black Francis (or Frank Black or Charles Thompson or whatever the hell you're supposed to call the guy). There's little sense of fun and even when Francis does get going (on 'Rock Music', 'Hang Wire' or 'Dig for Fire') it just doesn't have the...abandon that marked out earlier recordings.

There are highlights -- 'Down to the Well' shows some of the old spark, and 'Blown Away' too. But the difference between this and Doolittle -- well, it's hard even to compare.

I saw them on this tour and came away feeling short-changed, unlike the awe-inspiring performance I'd witnessed a couple of years earlier. One last rallying cry -- another album, 'Trompe Le Monde' -- and the Pixies were no more.

Summary: