Quirky, catchy melodies have always been Pixies calling card and on Beneath the Eyrie, their third post-reunion album, the alt-rock icons indulge everything from jaunty, old-timey Kurt Weill oom-pah rhythms to 10-foot waves of surf guitar. Frontman and chief songwriter Black Francis has said that the group embraced their most gothic urges with the records music (though he never comes off sounding like Rozz Williams) and the album is a bit darker and a little more muted than their other recent offerings.
Thats probably because two of the bands members have gone through significant life changes since they wrote their last album, 2016s Head Carrier: Francis went through a divorce and guitarist Joey Santiago went to rehab. So a lot of the music sounds like theyre chasing feelings. The pleading, contemplative Ready for Love is a wish and a hope for romance with rhythms that stutter like a Beatles song, and it works because of the way Francis gritty voice blends with Lenchantins smooth backups. The jaunty drinking song This Is My Fate, with its percussion punchlines, sounds like a band in search of the next whiskey bar. Graveyard Hill is the most classic Pixies-sounding track, a close cousin of the angsty guitar riffs of Gigantic, with its quiet-LOUD-quiet structure and Francis tale of a gorgeous witch.
Luckily, Francis well-sharpened senses of melody and humor guide them through the duskiness for a few memorable moments, such as the surfy St. Nazaire, lycanthropic spaghetti western drama of Silver Bullet, and the folky Catfish Kate, on which he sings about the titular heroine and the time before, when shes just Kate. Just like Kate, the Pixies sound caught between worlds. Theyre trapped in the dusk on most of the album, and its the few beacons of light here, when they sound like theyre all having fun, that cut through the darkness and make for great Pixies songs.