Head Carrier

Album: Head Carrier

Artist: Pixies

Released: September 10th, 2016

Highlights: Head Carrier, Talent, Tenement Song, Um Chagga Lagga

In 2014, after a hiatus of thirteen years, the Pixies released their first album since 1991’s “Trompe Le Monde”. As a band whose flawless legacy of four excellent records and one legendary EP grew to unforeseen heights after their breakup, “Indie Cindy” was – in a way – destined to be looked down on as an effort that did not live up to the greatness of that original run. The fact that the album was merely good, with decent to great tunes that failed to capture the group’s essence, certainly helped that cause. Two years later, “Head Carrier” emerges as proof that the Pixies, minus the departed bassist Kim Deal who is replaced by Paz Lenchantin, are pretty serious about their return to being productive musicians. It indicates that, just like fans are still wrapping their minds around the idea of receiving new tunes by the band, Black Francis, Joey Santiago, and Dave Lovering are relearning how to write and perform like the Pixies, for “Head Carrier” is much closer to the idiosyncrasy that turned them into alternative symbols than its predecessor.

Truthfully, “Head Carrier”, like “Indie Cindy”, presents something the early albums never did: unapologetic straightforward pop-rock songs. However, not only does it tackle that spectrum with far more success, turning in a good range of great tunes like the sweet soft ballad “Might as Well Be Gone” and the catchy rocker “Classic Masher”, the album also features an element that was mostly absent from “Indie Cindy”: a wild punk edge. The Pixies were masters in disguising excellent immediate hooks with all manners of curve-balls, such as mad screaming, unexpected guitar explosions, surrealistic lyrics that drank from obscure references to art and the Bible, changes of tempo, weird singing, and more. The disguises are by all means back, save for the use of Spanish words, but this time around they are not so thick, causing the band to sound somewhat more conventional – even if they are still quite unique – and making the pop inclinations of the tracks rise more prominently to the surface.

The title song kicks things off with an evil heavy guitar crunch previously unseen in the group’s discography and counters that power with a blissful melodic chorus, a reversal of the quiet-and-loud dynamic they coined. In “Baal’s Back”, Francis plays the role of the titular Biblical demon and shouts maniacally throughout the song, which has echoes of “Rock Music” from “Bossanova”. The sequence of “Talent”, “Tenement Song”, and “Bel Esprit” forms the album’s pop-rock core that is united by great catchy melodies: the first being about Jack Palance, or at least a dude that looks like him; the second balancing soft verses with a hard-rocking chorus; and the last offering an exquisite alien guitar texture that only Joey Santiago could execute. Meanwhile, “Um Chagga Lagga”, which depicts a frantic chase in lyrics and music, could be a lost heavier cut from “Come On Pilgrim”, featuring weird voices by Black Francis, a fast menacing pace, and an unusual melody.

“Head Carrier” shows the Pixies coming back into touch with much of what made them fantastic, even if it is slightly more sugar-coated than their early material. Even the mellow female backing vocals that contrapose Black Francis make a return; in fact, never have they been so frequent. Paz Lenchantin does incredible work, and she even gets to lead a song by herself (ironically, the letter to Kim Deal “All I Think About Now”, which has a loud ringing guitar backing an acoustic strum similar to that of “Where Is My Mind?”), and share vocals with Black Francis in “All the Saints”, which closes the album in much the same fashion as “Brick Is Red” from “Surfer Rosa”, by putting together a brief tune that is divided into an instrumental section preceding a short sung segment. Still, they are not merely reconnecting with the past here: they are writing and performing great songs that are worthy of their name and fame.