Wave Of Mutilation (Best Of Pixies) - Pixies

To start off a review on the Pixies by saying how influential they were is a bit passé, but I have done it, without the Pixies alternative and indie music would be very different and that is all I need to say on that. When they announce that they were releasing a best of LP it was kinda obvious that it was cash in. Surprisingly for an anarchist I have no problem with this, artists need to make a living too and we can’t all waste the bosses time by ...
...covers choice cuts from their five albums 1987s’ “Come on Pilgrim” 1988s’ “Surfer Rosa”, 1989s’ “Doolittle”, 1990s’ “Bossanova” and 1991s’ “Trompe de Monde”. 5 albums in 5 years is a pretty impressive work-rate for a band especially with all the touring and drugs to fit in, and to produce 5 albums that were as consistently as good as this is a pretty impressive feat.

So let us look at things in a bit more detail from 1987s’ LP “Come ... more

To start off a review on the Pixies by saying how influential they were is a bit passé, but I have done it, without the Pixies alternative and indie music would be very different and that is all I need to say on that. When they announce that they were releasing a best of LP it was kinda obvious that it was cash in. Surprisingly for an anarchist I have no problem with this, artists need to make a living too and we can’t all waste the bosses time by writing reviews on Ciao.

This album covers choice cuts from their five albums 1987s’ “Come on Pilgrim” 1988s’ “Surfer Rosa”, 1989s’ “Doolittle”, 1990s’ “Bossanova” and 1991s’ “Trompe de Monde”. 5 albums in 5 years is a pretty impressive work-rate for a band especially with all the touring and drugs to fit in, and to produce 5 albums that were as consistently as good as this is a pretty impressive feat.

So let us look at things in a bit more detail from 1987s’ LP “Come On Pilgrim” We have the classic “Nimrods Son” which is a chunky piece of country rockabilly with amazing male/female harmony vocals which is a Pixies trademark. “Holiday Song” which is simply a superb piece of indie rock with melodic jangly guitars. You know what I said about the Pixies being terribly influential this song proves it and listening to it I am back in 1987 jumping around at some indie club or other. Finally from this album we have “Caribou” and I hate it so I am not going to talk about it ok……

From 1998s’ “Surfer Rosa” which was produced by the legend that is Steve Albini, and has his trade mark sloppy production written all over it. There is “Bone Machine” and guitars go clang drums pound and it is generally wonderful. This is really my favourite pixies track instruments drop out and come back viciously; this is really classic Pixies for me. “Broken Face” again this just has Steve Albinis’ production written all over it noisy and unpredictable, and how wonderful it is as well. The single version of “Gigantic” starting off with Kim Deals’ fragile vocal, building up into a frenzied chorus switching back to Kims’ vocal, again this stop start thing was what the Pixies did best and they did it well, great as this song is it is somewhat spoiled for me by the number of time I have heard it. “Vamos” is just superb in its insanity and you would only get away with something this experimental if you have Steve Albini in the control room. “Where is My Mind” a great piece of indie psyche that was used at the end of the movie “Fight Club” you know the bit at the end where the buildings are blowing up, it is worth buying this collection for this one alone………….. Better still buy a copy of “Surfer Rosa” and stick it in your car………….

“Hey”, “Monkey Gone To Heaven”, “Debaser”, “Gouge Away”, “Wave of Mutilation”, “Here Comes Your Man” and “Tame” all come from the 1989s’ “Doolittle”. They show the bands continued evolution from true masters of indie rock to the people who defined what indie rock is. It also highlights their abilities to create great atmospheric works. “Here Comes Your Man” is a tune that Lennon and McCartney would have gouged out their eyes to write, me I just find it horrendously irritatingly tuneful. The B Side “into the white” is also included and shows that they were still able to experiment at this stage…

Jumping onto 1990s’ Bossanova we have “Velorria” “Allison” and “Dig for Fire” which I have to be honest about really don’t do much for me by this time the band were really past their creative peak, and it just sounds like generic indie rock, perhaps chucking Steve Albini in the control room at this time would have made a difference. The B side “Winterlong” from this period again just goes to suggest thet they were off the boil here, the stuff is still great but for the Pixes great is just not good enough.

Then finally the three cuts from 1991s’ “Trompe Le Monde” from the chunky riffing of “U-mass” to the frenzy of “Alec” and the weirdness that is “Planet of Sound” show a band regaining their fire for the last time as this was then end of the Pixes.

This is a near perfect rendition of the best of their back catalog released to coincide with a recent re-union tour, hopefully if they get back into the studio they will continue to make groundbreaking music that defines a genre, cause lets face it they don’t then there is no point………. You dear reader now have enough information to decide for yourself, the Pixies were awesome and did everything from Jangly indie guitar stuff to weird experimental stuff, to using harmonies that the Beatles would have been proud of. They are credited with creating the stop/start dynamic in songs by journalists but that is cause they are stupid and do not understand music, the Pixies did not create it they just used it better than anyone else.

Indie music fans will already have most of the songs on this compilation and if you are a fan of indie music than same on you if you don’t. As a compilation it is a great retrospective and handy for me as I don’t have any of the stuff on CD being the vinyl freak that I am.

Gotta go and do some work for the boss…………..
 

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