Words: Roy Wilkinson
Pixies
The Night The Zombies Came
★★★★
BMG
Their T-shirts proclaimed “Death to the Pixies” decades ago, which maybe negates the gormlessly undead album title. Thankfully, Pixies’ ninth album, The Night The Zombies Came, is full of more idiosyncratic kinds of revenant – and ensnaring music.
READ MORE: Pixies Interviewed: “We don’t want to be a Pixies cover band...”
The bell-pretty hooks of The Vegas Suite were inspired by the 1950s standard Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be). The sombre I Hear You Mary was triggered by the Pixies’ time at Rockfield Studio in 2012, but frames this Welsh corner with gargoyles and cobblestones. Most acute in its ancient revisionism is Hypnotised. The lyrics are modelled on the sestina, a verse form from 12th-century Provence. There’s none of their foundational bloodied rampage here, but the near title track Jane (The Night The Zombies Came) deftly blends a Spector-esque beat with a haunting dual vocal from frontman Black Francis and new bassist Emma Richardson, formerly of Band Of Skulls. This most thrillingly deathly of bands remains alive.
The Night The Zombies Came is out October 25 on BMG.
ORDER: Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV
Tracklisting:
Primrose
You're So Impatient
Jane (The Night the Zombies Came)
Chicken
Hypnotised
Johnny Good Man
Motoroller
I Hear You Mary
Oyster Beds
Mercy Me
Ernest Evans
Kings of the Prairie
The Vegas Suite
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