Trompe le Monde

by

Pixies

Edit

I've been listening to the Pixies since I was 12. They'll always be one of the best rock bands ever. Yes, "Come on Pilgrim" is the first release, and the rawest. Yes, "Doolittle" is probably considered the best Pixies album to date. "Bossanova" just rocks. Then, we have the final act.

"Trompe Le Monde" is a venture into a more produced, more "sci-fi" sound (Frank also took the sci-fi with him for his first 2 solo releases). It is frankly, for me, the best Pixies, or Frank Black writing ever released.

This album is worth the money alone for the track "Letter to Memphis". If you've only got one Pixies album so far, this should be the next.

TROMPE LE MONDE was the Pixies' last album. Released in 1991, it sees the band on the verge of breakup and Kim Deal contributed significantly less to the songwriting than on previous efforts. That essentially means Frank Black's idiosyncratic visions hog the spotlight. From the first three tracks on the album, "Trompe le Monde", "Planet of Sound" and "Alec Eiffel", one might suspect that the album as a whole would be great. Certainly it is impressive what instrumental skills and complex production the four members of the band show here, a long way away from their debut when they seemed to hardly know how to play.

Unfortunately, from the fourth track on, Frank Black's hoarse madman's scream and nearly relentless sarcasm becomes tiresome. There's little balance, and even when he lets up on the bitterness the tracks focus on weird UFO themes that make sense to him alone. Looking back on the whole Pixies discography, I feel that only their first two albums are essential. BOSSANOVA showed them treading water, while TROMPE LE MONDE goes in a new direction that I don't care to follow.