Almost every time someone with an amazing history in music and an even more amazing back catalog puts out a new album, it is difficult to repress first instincts to rip their new material to shreds. “Dog in the Sand” by Frank Black and the Catholics tests those instincts, making it impossible to find anything truly lacking from this ex-Pixie musical genius.
Black may know that all of his post-Pixies adventures may be judged harshly, simply due to nostalgic longing for his musical past, but he continues to push the envelope with new material and his original sound. It doesn’t matter if one has never heard the Pixies or doesn’t like them. Nor does it matter if one missed the three Frank Black solo albums or the previous two by Frank Black and the Catholics. “Dog in the Sand” is the type of album that will draw in indie-rock fanatics and avid music lovers alike.
The album includes a wide range of influences that display Black’s ability to produce soundscapes from all genres of music and lifestyles. He has stripped away much of the surf punk sound that gave the Pixies their identity, and he has added plenty of pedal-steel guitar for a whimsical backdrop to his often elaborate and sometimes puzzling lyrics.
The second track, “Stupid Me,” has an Everly Brothers sound to it — with piano stylings by ex-Catholics producer and keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman, a veteran of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band and Pere Ubu.
The strongest and most protruding song on the album has to be “St. Francis Dam Disaster” which recounts an early 20th century incident that resulted in a wall of water cascading 53 miles across the California countryside. The song may have some introspective undertones as Black’s stage name with the Pixies was Black Francis and the song seems to have a tugging correlation to the Pixies’ song, “Wave of Mutilation.”
“Dog in the Sand” has an overall ’70s AM radio feel, as if listening to the crackling airwaves while driving in a convertible Cadillac down some dusty back road in the heart of the Southwest. There are moments on the record where Black sounds remarkably like Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones and also like Neil Young, but at the core, the entire album is unquestionably Frank Black.
The only question that remains is: Is Black just trying to further himself from the Pixies’ sound or has he found his own new musical direction? Music fans will just have to wait to hear what Black does next.
Fans will hope Black and the Catholics continue to put out albums as musically satisfying as “Dog in the Sand” and that they will be in good spirits when they hit Columbus tomorrow night. After a gig in Philadelphia last Friday, all of their equipment, more than $70,000 worth, was stolen from outside their hotel. Black and his band had to cancel two gigs after the incident to regroup, but they are back on track and on the road again.
Doors open at 8 p.m. tomorrow night at Little Brother’s (1100 N. High St.) for Frank Black and the Catholics and opener House of Large Sizes. For more information or to help Black and the Catholics recover their gear, visit the What Are Records? Web site at www.war.com/frank_black/.
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