Heard Here


Frank Black and the Catholics
Dog in the Sand

Sometimes, a little age and perspective as a rock star can have some serious advantages. Sure, you don’t have beautiful groupies hanging off of you anymore, and there aren’t half a dozen guys backstage giving away drugs, but at least you get some rest. No more 200-show years, no more awful tour buses, no more constant pressure from the label for the next album, the next single. Frank Black, formerly of the Pixies (as Black Francis) and now with his new band, Frank Black and the Catholics, seems to have gotten at least a few nights’ good rest lately.
The band’s third and latest effort, Dog in the Sand doesn’t have the anger and immediacy of the Pixies’ best efforts, but it is nothing to sneeze at, either. Perhaps it is just the natural progression for those who have been through the fire of rock stardom and lived to tell the tale, but Frank Black sounds a helluva lot like Lou Reed, or pre-geriatric Rolling Stones. His distinctive voice doesn’t strain, and the country-western-tinged guitar (lots of slide) and piano lay down a more contemplative tempo. 
The album starts off with “Blast Off,” which sounds somewhere between the Stones and the Kinks; a lo-fi, straight-ahead rock song with enough tension to sustain itself but not so much as to make its seven-odd-minute length monotonous. The same is true for most of the album’s cuts, and so Dog in the Sand for the most part is a low-intensity affair. Black does show, however, that he still knows how to do the pensive-soul-tearing-rock-star thing on a few tracks, “Hermaphroditos” most notably. He steps the tempo down after each of those efforts, giving the album a rolling, textured feel.
The album chugs along on the strength of bright chords and a Cash-esque bass beat, and is altogether a pleasure. Recorded straight to two-track with no edits, it is quite successful in capturing the sound and feel of a live performance. One gets the feeling that the album was probably as much fun to make as to listen to.
Frank Black has kicked enough ass, musically, for many a recording star’s lifetime. Content now to sit back and have a beer, musically, I’d suggest you do the same, literally, after getting this album. Which you should do. Because it’s good.

-Jacob Kramer-Duffield

Fuck
Cupid’s Cactus

Calling a band Fuck is a mixed bag. Better not expect to try and sell your records through Wal-Mart. That seems to be the last thingFuck has on their minds. 
There is no danger of them showing up on the Billboard chart anytime soon, but some critics are hailing them as the new reference point for Pavement fans after that band’s breakup. Fuck has little in common with Pavement, other than a highly experimental nature that is just as comfortable borrowing from electronic music or doo-wop soul as country or rock and roll.
Cupid’s Cactus, Fuck’s first release on the Smells Like Records label after two albums on Matador, is brilliant. A dry intimacy flavors the production, and each song is filled with interesting structures and texture. The members of Fuck, although originally from San Francisco, now reside all over the U.S. and send each other demo tapes of songs, meeting up only to record or tour.
All four members of Fuck take turns singing, but even so, there is a remarkable consistency throughout Cupid’s Cactus, helped by similar moods that span the songs with wide varieties of instrumentation and experimentation as a common theme. Some instruments that appear: electric and acoustic guitars and basses, analog synthesizers, organ, piano, claves, Arabian bongos, drums, electric drums and harmonica. A wide range of found sounds appear in these songs too, from the party conversation (reminiscent of “Undone” by Weezer) that provides the backdrop for most of “Someday Aisle” to the skipping effects and elephant shriek that open “Awright” and the baby gurgles that happen in the middle of it.
All the songs on Cupid’s Cactus, despite various writers and sounds, come together to build a fascinating, funny, wiseass and brilliant album. The songs range from the barn-stomping “Never Alone,” where dirty electric guitars meet what sounds like electric bells to the mellow doo-wop soul of “Unbelievable” by way of the techno-organix flavor of “How Do You Do, Mr. Do” in which a driving Soul Coughing-like bass meets with television frequencies and electronically repeated tambourine, and the surf country of “Oshun.” 
The lyrics are not overly intellectual — they are mostly a collection of character sketches and obtuse couplets. A couple of examples: “She takes her panties off/And she covers when she coughs/And she makes a face” from “Panties Off” and “Take your time to work things through/Nothing’s been done that you can’t undo/Same old dance to the same old song/And the people are there just to get it wrong” from “Unbelievable.” All in all, in the year 2001 this is definitely the best album for the indie-rock genre.

-Chris DeWeese

Idyll Swords
II

The newest indie rock offering from Idyll Swords journeys through a variety of musical style. Although the members are all thick in the Chapel Hill indie music scene, on II they turn their talents to 14 different Indian, Middle-Eastern and Chinese instruments.
Chuck Johnson’s previous project, Spatula, was known for exploring several different musical styles on the same album. II, on the other hand, is unfortunately sadly monochromatic. The album opens with a few seconds of guitar strumming and quickly settles into a groove. Each song is several minutes of exotic string instruments in a familiar post rock structure. 
The tracks are mostly instrumental, but several include soft, sparse male voices. II also flirts with the experimental side of indie rock. “Tantz,” the first track, contains half a minute of field recordings from an Indian street. 
“Escutcheon Ascent/Biza’s Theme” is mostly a drone of sporadic noise. The sound has an Indian texture, but the structure is a distinctly American indie rock one. Even “Kashal in Rag Pilu,” a new arrangement of a traditional Afghani song, strikes no different chord than the other twelve tracks. The overall effect ranges between mesmerizing and boring. After listening to careful picking for a few minutes, one gives up hope for anything actually happening.
Johnson, Brylawski and Tennille have created an excellent fusion of widely different styles, bringing in influences from across the globe. It’s a little sad that II isn’t an exciting, engaging album. They may have put too much energy into learning those 14 different instruments. It’s great to have ruan, tambura, oud and cumbus all together on the same album, but in the context of the album they all just mix together into a guitar-like haze.
The music on II is easy to listen to and it is engaging in its own way. It just has a way of always fading into the background, no matter how hard you try to concentrate on the music. Idyll Swords are carefully treading out new ground. This release may fall short, but the next could land with a bang.

-Neil Freeman