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Frank Black - Honeycomb
If in the last twenty years you have at any point considered yourself an indie kid, then the chances are that you will have done one of two things for definite. You’ll have either bought a Pixies album or single, or you’ll have danced your arse off in some sweaty little indie club to Here Comes Your Man, Planet of Sound or Monkey Gone to Heaven.
How do I know this you may wonder, well I know because every indie kid I know loves the Pixies (myself included), be it because they had a big influence on Nirvana or simply because the Pixies produced a hell of a lot of good music and the original line up has continued to do so through various other outlets since the demise of the band.
I’ll bet something else as well. I bet the majority of those people wouldn’t consider buying a Frank Black solo album. Yes the die-hards will and do buy his solo records, but on the whole commercially Frank Black hasn’t sold any quantity of records for about ten years. The reason for this is probably that across the eight or nine albums that Black has released on his own, or under the Frank Black and the Catholics moniker his albums have lacked consistency throughout them. Teenager of the Year contained ten great songs, but out of twenty two that’s not a great ratio.
So after that build up about Frank Blacks ‘mixed bag’ solo album career so far, it’s time for you to actually consider buying your first Frank black album, if you’ve bought one in the past and been disappointed then it’s time for you to give the guy another chance, because he really has delivered this time.
Honeycomb is consistently brilliant throughout, his voice has never sounded better and yes I’m including his time in the Pixies in that as well! The big thing for me here though is that you get the feeling he believes this is his best record as well. It’s produced by Jon Tiven who worked on his 1994 hit Headache, but more importantly for the type of record this is it’s recorded in Nashville. Not only that it’s produced in Nashville and uses Nashville musicians, people who have been there and done it with the best of them.
- Frank Black
- Honeycomb (2005)
- Category: Album
- Label: Cooking Vinyl
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 15 Jul 2005
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
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Add to favouritesThe album has a real natural feel to it, it flows beautifully, no doubt helped by the fact that it was recorded in four days, with most of the first takes making it to the final cut. Despite a couple of cover versions on the album (a delightful take on Gram Parsons Dark End of the Street, Song of the Shrimp from an Elvis film and the playfully melodic Sunday Sunny Mill Valley Grove Day which was written by Doug Sahm) this is a deeply personal record for Black.
I Burn Today has a desperate passion about it as he sings “pull my heart strings out and have yourself a strum�, likewise Selkie Bride as he pleas “If you return again, I’ll be the saddest man, my lips will burn your skin, please don’t return again, please don’t repeat again�. It’s this fragile beauty and honesty in the lyrics that sets it apart from other Frank Black records, the stripped down music gives the lyrics the perfect stage from which to entwine the audience in Franks torment.
This really has surprised me this album, I’ve played it more times in the last couple of weeks than I have any of his previous post Pixies output put together. If you can listen to a more vulnerable Frank Black than the choppy, grungy guitars he’s famous for then you’ll find yourself enjoying one of the most beautifully, organic records to come out of America in years. The Pixies may have reformed last year and got the indie kids buzzing again, but I’ll be amazed if they can produce anything on a par with this record now.
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We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
Try and keep on topic if you can and no insulting the contributors. All hate mail can be addressed to Kev.