Head Carrier | Loppylugs

Submitted by Neil Hornsey on 20 February 2017 - 3:28pm

Cover:

Artist:

Pixies

album-ID:

a_188

Nationality:

USA

Year:

2 016

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Head Carrier*Classic Masher*Baal’s Back*Might As Well Be Gone*Oona*Talent*Tenement Song*Bel Esprit*All I Think About Now*Um Chagga Lagga*Plaster Of Paris*All The Saints

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_72

Now-num:

2 017

Spotify-URL:

26BA9bupsAH3gXCFSKI9kT

Short-title:

headCarrier

nominator-ID:

u_13

Meeting-date:

Tuesday, 21 February 2017

MusicBrainz-URL:

48ddd89c-a4cf-4de4-a71a-a74dd59241ca

Wikipedia-URL:

Head_Carrier

Spotify-link-type:

album

Metacritic-URL:

head-carrier/pixies

Discogs-URL:

Pixies-Head-Carrier/master/1059372

Allmusic-URL:

album/mw0002964077

Musixmatch-URL:

Pixies/Head-Carrier

Pitchfork-URL:

22437-head-carrier/

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108

109

117

reviewers-IDs data

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-14-

-13-

-96-

78

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

Looks like I’m going / where I already been

1-2-5-10

6

I was worried I was going to be listening to a formerly great band going through the motions. Like a lot of bands who have been around the block a few times, they know how to get their sound, it’s pretty easy for them, but can they still summon up the magic? The concern is not just because their stock was so high but because the songs rely on a direct, simple sound, full of aggression, the sort of thing that can easily become elusive with age.

But this is great stuff. Full of the invention and little twists that made them such a fantastic band. It’s simple stuff really, which is what makes it so exciting to lsiten to – like a lot of great rock music, these are all songs you’d like to think you could play on the guitar and pull it off with the right attitude (but never could, of course). Deceptively simple, perhaps you could call it.

I enjoy the lyrical inventions, my favourite, “Please / I wanna be in your band”, (Oona). The one that had me a bit irritated was Talent – that stuck in my head and I couldn’t dislodge it. But that’s probably the only weak song on the album. Not great throughout but enough good stuff to put this album right up there with the best of the Pixies canon.
75

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
72

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

It's still the Pixies

1-3-8-11

6

A fine effort. Never mind the history of what's gone before, this is a great collections of songs in their own right, in the usual great Pixies style.
68

reviewed by

Lesley

Catchy tunes and earworms

1-2-5-8-11

6-10-12

I was never a huge fan of The Pixies back in the day, but I loved their Doolittle album, with memorable songs like ‘Debaser’, ‘Here Comes Your Man’ and ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’. This 2016 album had a definite nostalgic air of 1990s indie discos. Songs like ‘Classic Masher’ and ‘Bel Esprit’ I could imagine dancing to in my Doc Martins and flowery frock. I have to admit that when I first listened to it I didn’t think it was going to live up to my expectations, but on subsequent listens this album really grew on me. The thing The Pixies do incredibly well is catchy tunes and lyrics – too catchy maybe, this album woke me up daily with a new earworm! I really didn’t like ‘Um Chagga Lagga’, although the ‘um chagga lagga at the side of the road’ was catchy I found it quite aggressively so, as if they were making you to sing along at gunpoint. I particularly liked ‘Plaster of Paris’, I thought it was beautiful and had an elegiac feel to it. I also through this should have been the last song on the album, it would have closed the album on a high for me. The song they did choose to end the album with was ‘All the Saints’ and I thought it was a weak conclusion to what was, overall, a very good album.