toosday reevoos

frank black - Honeycomb: Considering the only two songs the pixies have managed to record since their reformation a year ago were the abysmally bad track, 'Bam Thwok' (it was even rejected from the Shrek 2 soundtrack), and the throw away Warren Zevon cover, 'Ain't So Pretty at All', it's probably just as well that the only other new material coming from that camp (besides the gratuitous Frank Black Francis cd of his early demos and pixies covers) is the new solo album from the Brackish one himself, so as not to tarnish the begining to be questionable reputation of the Pixies legacy. When they originally broke up in '92 we all thought that the first Frank Black solo album was going to sound (hopefully) just like the pixies, since he was the chief songwriter, many of the tracks were originally written as pixies songs, and both david lovering and joey santiago made appearances on the disc. Unfortunately, such was not the case as we were bitch-slapped with the sugary-sweet dribble of not only that 'debut' but his next two drastically sub par discs as well. That, coupled with the artistic & commercial power of the Breeders, left some to wonder who was really the driving force behind the pixies (of course after listening to Kim's unbearably lame lyrics in 'Bam Thwok', I guess we'll never know). The dissapointment continued when Frank joined forces with The Catholics and churned out another several discs of bland americana rock (amerirockacana?)
Honeycomb is consistently better than any of Franky boy's other releases, that is if you're looking for a more stripped down mellow affair. Still plays on the americana tip, but in a lazy hot afternoon on the front porch, folk song kind of way, which works very much to his advantage. Oh yeah, and the nashville session musicians help out a bit too. So far, so good.

xiu xiu - La Foret: Self indulgent, tortured art rock. I really enjoyed the beligerance of 'I luv the Valley, OH!' off their last disc Fabulous Muscles. Like all of their material, this album requires lots of patience mixed with just the right amount of painkillers in order for it to be enjoyable.

prefuse 73 READS the books: This is exactly what the title implies; Scot Heron mixes The Books' latest with his own, the results are not so interesting. You'd be much better off with the source material.

zZz - The Sounds of zZz: Let's say you were in the mood to listen to The doors, jon spencer, the butthole surfers, and the B-52's in one sitting. You could save yourself a lot of time, by just throwing on the zZz's debut, which is comprised of merely organ, drums, & baritone vox.