- Label
- Cooking Vinyl
- Release date
- 3rd March 2008
- Genre
- Rock
- Buy this album
- Order CD
Erstwhile Pixies frontman returns with short, sweet album
Black Francis - aka Frank Black, American indie titan and occasional leader of the Pixies - has, in the past, found it easier to prove his songwriting chops with his old band than as a solo artist. However, on Svn Fingers, he visits Irish mythology and produces seven short songs which call to mind, from time to time, the kind of glories that caused the Pixies to have such plaudits heaped upon them in the past.
While Black's vocal style is uniquely abrasive - varying from a growl to a yelp in the space of a single line - and his guitar technique could politely be described as "all over the place", he manages to marry these aspects of a relatively punk aesthetic to mellifluous indie songwriting skills. Listening to harmonies come together from a relatively chaotic background on songs such as Garbage Heap (which calls to mind the mid-80s defining sound of Here Comes Your Man) and the joyous stomp of The Tale Of Lonesome Fetter is a real pleasure. And this album is so short and precise that the novelty of Black's delivery can't become stale.
More to try: Sugar: File Under Easy Listening Bruce Springsteen: Magic
