Pixies ‘The Night the Zombies Came’ Review: Revamped and Revived (original) (raw)

The Pixies’s The Night the Zombies Came sees the first major change in personnel for the band since Paz Lenchantin took over as bassist and backing vocalist a decade ago. Lenchantin, who was unceremoniously removed from the lineup earlier this year, has been replaced by English musician and visual artist Emma Richardson, formerly of Band of Skulls. Richardson, whose vocals are featured prominently throughout, sings an octave above lead singer Black Francis, who even steps away from the mic on occasion to let her sing solo.

Richardson’s harmonies on songs like “Chicken” and “Mercy Me” are positively Beatles-esque, and by default probably the most conventionally beautiful moments in the Pixies’s discography to date. But her youthful and precise voice isn’t there solely to beautify or even balance out Black Francis’s increasingly monotone growl. As she demonstrates on “Motoroller,” which features the album’s most potent guitar riff, Richardson is willing and able to rough up her delivery when the songs call for it. Her high harmonies during the song’s the bridge lend an unexpected pathos to lyrics like “I tried to call you on the telephone/And now I gotta do this all alone.”

Comparing Richardson’s bass playing to Lenchantin’s—or Kim Deal’s, for that matter—is a trickier proposition. Producer Tom Dalgety, who specializes in creating a meaty contemporary rock sound, leaves plenty of room in his mixes for a fulsome low end, but Richardson’s playing doesn’t draw attention to itself. At times she’s content to merely emphasize David Lovering’s kick drum, while Lovering in turn is careful not to trample over Black Francis’s melodies and leave room for Joey Santiago’s numerous lead guitar parts.

Santiago’s guitar could be every bit as wonderfully tasteless and deranged as Black Francis’s lyrics on the Pixies’s early albums. And he still whips up some riotous noise here: His virtuoso tremolo strumming is key to the success of many of the album’s heavier numbers, providing otherwise midtempo tracks like “You’re So Impatient” and “Ernest Evans” with much-needed energy. But he’s matured as a musician, and his work on the more downbeat, country-tinged material here is as successful as his attention-grabbing punk-rock pyrotechnics, evoking images of wide-open spaces with a finesse akin to Ry Cooder’s score for Wim Wenders’s Paris, Texas.

Ultimately, though, the success of any Pixies album is dependent on what Black Francis brings to the table. And among the 13 tracks on The Night the Zombies Came, there isn’t a single dud. Curious delights abound, such as the British folk of the opening track “Primrose” (“If you should see me pass / Give love to my lass and my good fellows”), the B-movie schlock of “Jane (The Night the Zombies Came),” and the deceptively clever meter of “Hypnotised.”

The skepticism of critics and fans toward the Pixies in the early days of their second act, on albums like 2016’s Head Carrier, has subsided over time. In particular, 2022’s Doggerel challenged the pervading narratives that had grown up around the Pixies—of a band out of time and out of touch with what made them so influential to begin with. The Night the Zombies Came is another surefooted step forward for them, an album on which they seem to have reconciled their past and are determined, with their new lineup, to forge a new direction.

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Label: BMG Release Date: October 25, 2024 Buy: Amazon

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