Frank Black

Solo work by the former Pixies frontman.

Frank Black

(1993)
  1. Los Angeles
  2. I Heard Ramona Sing
  3. Hang On To Your Ego
  4. Fu Manchu
  5. Places Named After Numbers
  6. Czar
  7. Old Black Dawning
  8. Ten Percenter
  9. Brackish Boy
  10. Two Spaces
  11. Tossed (Instrumental Version)
  12. Parry the Wind High, Low
  13. Adda Lee
  14. Every Time I Go Around Here
  15. Don't Ya Rile 'Em

Good stuff. I like just about every song.

Guitarist Joey Santiago, also formerly of the Pixies, plays on most of the tracks.

John Linnell of They Might Be Giants is one of the sax players on "Tossed".

Teenager of the Year

(1994)

[album cover]
  1. Whatever Happened to Pong?
  2. Thassalocracy
  3. Abstract Plain
  4. Calistan
  5. The Vanishing Spies
  6. Speedy Marie
  7. Headache
  8. Sir Rockaby
  9. Freedom Rock
  10. Two Reelers
  11. Fiddle Riddle
  12. Ole' Mulholland
  13. Fazer Eyes
  14. I Could Stay Here Forever
  15. The Hostess with the Mostest
  16. Superabound
  17. Big Red
  18. Space Is Gonna Do Me Good
  19. White Noise Maker
  20. Pure Denizen of the Citizens' Band
  21. Bad, Wicked World
  22. Pie in the Sky

Kind of hit-and-miss for me. The first seven are great, but only a few of the rest are better than tolerable. It's not that they're bad, but I've heard them more than enough times, which still isn't very many.

Joey Santiago is back for a few tracks.

The Cult of Ray

(1995)

[album cover]
  1. The Marsist
  2. Men in Black
  3. Punk Rock City
  4. You Ain't Me
  5. Jesus Was Right
  6. I Don't Want To Hurt You
  7. Mosh, Don't Pass the Guy
  8. Kicked in the Taco
  9. The Creature Crawling
  10. The Adventure and the Resolution
  11. Dance War
  12. The Cult of Ray
  13. The Last Stand of Shazeb Andleeb

I basically like this one, but it must not have sold well, as it seems to be either out of print or not very widely available at all.

The drumming is frustratingly simple on many of the tracks. I keep waiting for a fill or even an extra little bit of oomph, but it never comes.

Fortunately, "Mosh" doesn't suffer from the drumming problem. That one's fun.

The Ray of the title is Ray Bradbury.

Frank Black and the Catholics

(1998)
  1. All My Ghosts
  2. Back to Rome
  3. Do You Feel Bad About It?
  4. Dog Gone
  5. I Gotta Move
  6. I Need Peace
  7. King and Queen of Siam
  8. Six-Sixty-Six
  9. Solid Gold
  10. Steak 'n' Sabre
  11. Suffering
  12. The Man Who Was Too Loud

I had trouble getting into this at first, and it sat for about three years after the first couple times I listened to it. Now it's one of my favourite albums by anyone. I like all the songs, but my favourites are 1, 4, and 8-10.

"You get the medal for scariest frown!"
Back to the CD rack
[Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict]
Jeff Blank <jfb@mr-happy.com>