Are you feeling appre… hensive?

Every little shit’s gotta find a salt lick

Excellent. Ten out of ten. Who, what, you query? Well, the uninitiated among you will. Those who have heard Threshold Apprehension, the first single off Bluefinger, the new album from the man himself, Frank Black, would not.

Except he’s called Black Francis again. Hmm. His Pixies avatar, handle, stage name, call it what you will. The last time we heard it, it was alongside such masterful tracks as Letter to Memphis and U-Mass. Frank Black, as we now knew him, well, one never knew what to expect from Frank, but at least for me, it was always good. As I alluded to somewhere else, the only criticism I would have of “Frank Black” is of too much; from the entrails of his ten plus albums over the last fifteen years, he’d have material for at least three extraordinary albums. What other people had against him was that he was being a mule-headed bastid; having disbanded the Pixies, he had the nerve to produce country albums. The nerve of the man!

So it was with a little bit of trepidation that I grappled with the idea of Bluefinger. The word on the grapevine was that it harked back to his Pixies days. Reminiscent of Debaser and U-Mass, said No Ripcord, and even Pitchfork was reasonably complimentary. What’s more, it’s a concept album. About a Dutch musician called Herman Brood, who was equally well known for his rampant drug abuse, and candour about his drug and sex addictions. In the end, he swore off most drugs except for alcohol and a daily shot of speed.

from Wikipedia

Brood (pronounced Broat) committed suicide by leaping off the Amsterdam Hilton in June 2001, the event of which is spookily alluded to in the epic Angels Come to Comfort You. Effectively, all ten songs are loosely shaped around Brood, which must make it a contender for the most unlikely and bizarre concept/tribute album ever.

It’s a fantastic album. It’s not the Pixies, and nor should it be. I will always be inordinately disappointed never to have seen the Pixies on their reunion tour but even then, I suspect it was not quite the same thing as it was in the late eighties. Tame could never have been as good as this:

Taken from here

I love the way the album cracks off with Captain Pasty, which given Ian Bell’s complexion is something I could have named the last post. But Threshold Apprehension sees the full-time employment of the famous Black yowl for the first time since the good old days. While he yowled occasionally in the past (see Blast Off, the opener on Dog in the Sand), this is the most manic he’s been in a long, long time. And the chorus is superb:

Who’s carrying who?
Who’s turning the screw?
Who hath prophesied
Petit paramour
I will be the whore
And you’ll be my suicide

My personal favourite point is when he barks ‘Are you feeling appre… hensive?’ This is why I have named the post this, clearly. Tight Black Rubber is exceptional, keeping with the spirit that Brood was the Dutch personification of “sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll”. This is if you can avoid the image of the plump (I know, I is kind) Black in tight black rubber. The epic ode to Brood’s suicide in Angels Come to Comfort You is a little unnerving, especially the lyrics ‘they will come and take your hand, they’ll lead you down the hall, they will break your fall’, and the ‘he felt the angels kiss him on the head, whispering the name that rhymes with dead’ before going into a choir-like finale featuring his new wife Violet Clarke’s wordless vocals interlayered upon what presumably angels are meant to sound like. The song also pays homage to Room 902 which is where John Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed at in the Amsterdam Hilton, and while I’m not sure, presumably where Brood jumped to his death. The other two highlights for me are Your Mouth into Mine, which is a great rocker, and a cover of Brood’s own You Can’t Break a Heart and Have It, where Violet Clarke’s melodious backing vocals are a great addition to Black’s renewed snarl. The rest of the songs are all good. There aren’t any fillers.

A fine album. I wouldn’t have imagined a speed junkie parlour pianist from Holland would be the catalyst for the return of Black Francis. And as the man himself says:

John Lennon and Yoko Ono claimed the Amsterdam Hilton in 1969. The Pixies headlined their first big rock show in Holland in 1988. Herman Brood reclaimed the Hilton for his country in 2001, and now I feel he has even claimed back The Pixies, or at least me, BLACK FRANCIS.

Welcome back, sir.

And stop whining about this over-long ode to an excellent album. Just go and bloody well give it a listen.