212 Words about Kim Deal and Frank Black

The new Breeders album is fine. Out of three, it’s my least favorite of theirs. Which is not terrible considering how much I like the other two. Then again, it always sucks to tarnish a perfect record like that.

I think the main problem is a lack of kick-ass pop songs. Last Splash is full of great, shiny pop songs, and Title TK has the rough, tossed-off (and even greater for it because they’re so irrepressibly pop) pop songs. Mountain Battles has few pop moments, but is mostly subdued weirdness. And sometimes I like subdued weirdness, but here my expectations were disappointed.

Speaking of being disappointed, let’s compare Kim Deal to Frank Black. When I learned to love the Pixies, I also learned to love Frank’s first two albums, and I definitely saw them as carrying on the Pixies’ legacy while the Breeders were a separate thing. But then Frank started aggressively following his personal muse (good) and made increasingly boring music (bad). The only thing that prompted me to buy his last album was curiosity as to why he credited to Black Francis rather than Frank Black. And to be fair, it was his most interesting album in a while. But still, the guy has lost it, I’m sad to say.