Review

The Pixies' swan song predicted the next decade of rock
By Bossanova, their third album, the Pixies were ready to become a major band. They never made it, but the pop effort has its rewards: a more layered, multi-track production; greater chime in the chime-to-scrape sonic ratio; lots of vowels for Black Francis to gargle ("Velouria," "Havalina," "Allison," etc.). If earlier Pixies set the stage for Nirvana, Bossanova predicted Smashing Pumpkins.

And Francis remains a wizard of songcraft: listen to how "The Happening" kicks off like a blues, only with an extra chunk before the rhyme arrives, puts in a bridge (working off a rhyme with the extra chunk) that is almost as delicious, melodically, as the album's great "Is She Weird." Then, on the repeat, he lets the bridge turn into a vamp that, parallel to the alien abduction theme of the lyric, absconds with the rest of the song, becoming a mini-epic of its own.

But here is where Black Francis' either sexist or quite possibly just rock star tendencies started to cost him. It's too bad that the formidably gifted Kim Deal doesn't sing louder on the hugely catchy "Dig For Fire," or get more of the spotlight in general. Is it any wonder that the commercial breakthrough that Francis craved turned out to be Deal's, when she fronted her own band, The Breeders?