Album Reviews

Royal Trux back to indie

"I've heard it said that the people who are most vulnerable are those that think it could never happen to them." - Neil Hagerty, guitarist of Royal Trux

These words, which are included in the liner notes of Royal Trux's new Singles, Live, and Unreleased(SLU) double LP, speak volumes about Hagerty's life over the last three years. In 1994, he and his Royal Trux bandmate, vocalist Jennifer Herrema, left the independent Drag City Records to sign a contract with Virgin Records, a corporate behemoth.

The band was shocked by the vast amounts of money offered by Virgin for a project that was originally conceived as a joke, and they seemed excited about the chance to become legitimate hitmakers. There was only one problem with this scenario: although Royal Trux was highly respected by a small group of loyal followers, the band's "noise core" sound had zero widespread commercial potential. Finally, in early 1997, Virgin came to their fiscal senses and dropped Royal Trux from their roster. The release of SLU marks Royal Trux's return to Drag City, and it is a triumphant reminder of what made Virgin take a risk on the band. Between the thick, scabby, glorious sound of Hagerty's crunchy guitar and Herrema's gritty vocals exists a real knowledge of rock and roll's past and future. SLU's 32 songs, which trace the bands pre-Virgin work from 1988-1994, reveal the band's music to be an exhilarating Stonesian ride through uncharted musical waters.

Music is seldom as enjoyably self-indulgent then it is during such bluesy romps as "Mercury" and "Spike Cyclone." How bands like Tonic and the Verve Pipe have the courage to release songs in the same decade, or even the same century as these raucous romps is hard to comprehend. Royal Trux, like Hagarty's former band Pussy Galore, often plays music for people who enjoy mean, violent dick-rock devoid of posturing and moralizing.

That is not to say that this band has no heart. In songs like "Faca Amalda" and "Theme from M*A*S*H*," Royal Trux conveys a sort of strained emotional desparation which makes the band almost endearing. Like any important band, Royal Trux quickens your pulse even as the tempo of the songs linger at mid-range. There are few people who can express such unnerving emotions in a less self-important and silly way. One hopes that they can continue this legacy in subsequent releases. As an album, SLU works because the songs, which are presented in chronological order, are of such high quality. There are no real throwaways in this collection, and even when Hagarty hits a sour note on guitar during some obscure peel session, the process is consistently enrapturing. The band, it appears, has created a forceful niche in the crowded landscape of popular music, and has held their ground. You might not be able to take that to the bank, but trash was never all that valuable in the first place.

Pixies never die

There are a couple of very good reasons that the two-CD set Death to the Pixies is worth shelling out the $25-some dollars. The first and best reason is simply that nobody hates the Pixies. Nobody. People may not like the style of music, but nearly every single person who likes some form of rock music, be it pop-, indie-, alterna-, punk-, -'n'roll, any type at all, they all like the Pixies. Everybody seems to have that one mix tape from sometime in high school that's all worn down from listening to one section over and over again and "Gigantic" cuts off in the middle. The tape always gets flipped over as fast as humanly possible because the music itself feels like a cliffhanger.

The Pixies got their start way back when in 1987, and went their separate ways six years ago. After making four albums and umpteen singles, the Pixies themselves are still alive, beating all the bands who were at the forefront of the soon-to-be alternative rocker scene. They haven't gone back on tour, and to the commercial non-bootleg world, the band has basically been dead. And through staying dead, with the exception of a double CD box set here and there, they have been able to become wedged into the part of the head where people keep songs they can't help but sing along with, those first songs that people learn to make funky sounding guitar noises to.

The other reason lies all over the second CD. The first one is fun in its own right because it's your basic run of the mill greatest hits collection, but the 1990 Dutch concert is the real gem. The first handful of the songs on the live CD are good, what you'd expect from a digitally re-mastered copy of a great show. But from the second the slowed down Pump Up the Volume version of "Wave of Mutilation" begins, until the last shout of "Tony's Theme" the show takes off and barely slows down.

The wailing and screeching of Black Francis/Frank Black/Charles Thompson is brought out and mixes with the accented and almost cushioning shouts of Kim Deal. Death to the Pixies feels more like a wake than anything else, a pricey celebration of life after death which is well worth getting a hold of. It may not chock full of new tracks, but the more Pixies, the better.