Album Review

Frank Black – Best of ’93-’03

• 11th Jun 2007

Godfather of alternative rock Charles Thompson aka Frank Black aka Black Francis (what is this hip-hop?) delivers a comprehensive two disc retrospective on ten years of his mightily impressive solo cannon.

When you think of the absolute shitload of great songs he wrote when in The Pixies, when you listen to all the great songs he’s written post Pixies (and this is just a selection), it really hits you just what an important part of rock history Frank Black is. He rarely writes a bad song and he’s forged countless classics, influenced and continues to influence hundreds and thousands of bands the world over.

This collection has the feel of a man comfortable with doing whatever he wants to do. He doesn’t need to impress anyone or achieve anything else – he’s been there, done it and bought a suitcase full of cheap, tacky souvenir t-shirts. He just let’s his rather unboundless talent do what it does best and see where it takes him.

A more mature songwriter as an older, wiser solo artist. Still very much the same style and sound as The Pixies, but incorporating wider arrays of genres. Moments of country, folk and classic rock creep in on the old habits die hard, three chord quiet / loud formula.

His clever use of dark imagery and peculiar metaphors are still prominent and fascinating. There are more open, honest and laid bare gestures here to “I don’t want to hurt you every single time”.

One of the great rock voices, truck loads of gravel, guts and grunginess – you realise how he was such an inspiration to Kurt Kobain and co, especially on songs like ‘All My Ghosts’.
A fabulous collection that captures the great man at his seminal best. A world with no Frank Black would have been a much blander world of plastic cock rock – we owe him big time, true legend.

By
Label: Cooking Vinyl
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