Pixies: Head Carrier ALBUM REVIEW

The Pixies are a great band. I hand to remind myself of that fact after their last full length, 2014's abysmal Indy Cindy. A comeback album that made me kind of wish that the band had just stayed dead. However, the group (once again without Kim Deal) have given us another new LP to chew on, this album has a lot less expectation and a lot less tumultuous past, but the question is, is it any good?

Well, I'll start by saying; it is a WHOLE lot better than Indy Cindy, but that's no high bar. However, I do think this album is the comeback album I was expecting Cindy to be; an album that shows a band that has a very idiosyncratic sound re-familiarizing themselves with the dynamic that made them so amazing and influential all those years ago. In short, Head Carrier is the sound of Pixies centering themselves. Unfortunately, that also means it is an entirely forgettable album, and one that has absolutely no new ideas to bring forward. Actually, there are moments of blatant plagiarism on some tracks here, most notably on the track "All I Think About Now" which is one accidental string pluck away from being "Where Is My Mind?".

That doesn't mean that the album is 'bad', but just kind of mediocre in the scope of the Pixies career. I did like the first four tracks, especially "Classic Masher" and "Might As Well Be Gone", both of which are more upbeat and have pretty solid melodies which remind me of Bossanova era Pixies, even if they are a bit neutered in terms of production. In fact, that is one of this albums two major problems, the production here is too clean, and doesn't lend itself to the Pixies traditionally raw sound. Sure, there are fans who would argue that the same could be said about Bossanova and Trompe le Monde, but I dare anyone to say that those albums lacked guts. Speaking of which, aside from a fairly impressive vocal performance on "Baal's Back" the rest of this album sees the band playing with very little fervor, which makes the whole of the album just feel a bit boring from one end to the other.

In all honesty, I'm okay with this LP. Will I remember any of the tracks in the next three months? Probably not, but I also won't have to burn a portion of my memories in effort to erase it either. So yeah, the Pixies are a great band, and this album is just okay.

5.0/10