Indie Cindy, the first full studio album from alt-rock legends the Pixies, since 1991

Arguably one, if not the most influential, pioneering band of the late 80s alt-rock movement, the Pixies release their long awaited sixth album.

Pixies - Indie Cindy 7/10 Pixiesmusic - OUT NOW

Indie Cindy might be the latest release from the Pixies but it's not the first new material though, EP1 and EP2, released September 2013 and January 2014 respectively, plus the three new tunes from the recent EP3, read our review of EP2
here. All of the EP tracks are included on this release making it a slightly disappointing collection if you have already bought all of the EPs separately. It is also the only Pixies album not to feature Kim Deal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAxqFo59TBs&list=PL-2yJVC4xw_eJXbHKJk2HcB5G3jy440HR

What's Goes Boom opens the album in trademark Pixies style, loud, brash and bolshy, Joey Santiago’s guitars scrape across Black Francis yelpings. Greens and Blues is surprisingly melodic and strangely melancholic with the lyrics "I'm wasting my time talking you to, best I go on home...". Listening to it there are echoes of the likes of Gigantic sewn into the harmonies. The title track, starts of slowly, then ups the tempo and turns into something much heavier before reverting back to a harmonious gentle chorus – perhaps a definitive example of their “loudquietloud” signature sound. Lyrically is it aggressive and angsty as Francis shouts "You put the cock in cocktail man!"

Bagboy stands out as one of the more interesting tracks, almost disco, it's drumbeat it's practically funky. Guitars slap and screech over some fabulously obtuse lyrics, crashing into a harmony loaded chorus. Magdelina 318 is deliciously dark and foreboding, like a twisted goth fairy tale. Silver Snail from EP3 it's totally underwhelming. Slow and laborious, feeling very much like filler, a case of not having saved the best until last. Blue Eyed Hexe next to Bagboy sounds like a slight re-tread, it's a little AC/DC a little Honky Tonk Woman. Ring the Bell is another EP3 track and while it has all the trademark Pixies ingredients it manages to be completely unremarkable. Toe in the Ocean, already available on the EP1 is agreeable, not offensive but feels uncomfortably safe. Andro Queen, from EP2 features some interesting vocals and messes around with the tempo creating something unusually dreamy and hypnotic. Jamie Bravo closes the album in a disappointingly unremarkable style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGdSYPh5_BI&list=PL-2yJVC4xw_c0-jGxxm8tSWW62q8MbgdY Thrown-in on this deluxe edition is a generous amount of live recordings, only really emphasising the greatest of the older tracks when pitted against the new songs. The previous  releases of EP1 and EP2 came across in such scurries of energy that the full length album promised more than it actually delivers, EP3 felt less urgent and contains the weaker songs. All the ingredients are there but the end result feels like something slightly overcooked, a little lack-lustre and deflated, lacking in bite. What smarts the most about this album isn't the dreary mediocrity of some of the songs but the disappointment of having already heard all of it on the EPS. Questioning the need to release an album at all other than for money, released as EPs the new material was much punchier, here, with a run time much longer than needed, it's bloated and tired. What brilliance
Indie Cindy does have has already been noted, leaving little new to say about this collection of tracks. That said, that they are still making (mostly) stimulating and impressive music and the recent news that Kim Deal may re-join the band makes the prospect of
Indie Cindy live quite exciting.
pixiesmusic.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9BppDosyl8  

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