Pixies
Beneath the Eyrie
Release Date: Sep 13, 2019
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Infectious
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Album Review: Beneath the Eyrie by Pixies
Great, Based on 9 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
Arguably their greatest work in 28 years, this otherworldly album filters present-day tribulations through the band's witchy, psychedelic prism It’s Pixies’ otherworldly gaze that has always made them so appealing. While their blue-collar attitude, punk approach and quiet-LOUD simplicity would inspire the grunge movement that brought alternative music crashing back down to Earth, the realm of Black Francis and co has always been more of a psychedelic fever dream of myth, legend, bible scriptures and the fantastic. With seventh album 'Beneath The Eyrie', that fascination takes a much darker turn.
Based on rating 8
It's difficult to pin down the inherent appeal of PIXIES. They're abrasive and idiosyncratic, off kilter and uncompromising, with Black Francis' lyricism a veritable rabbit warren of psychedelic imagery that takes years of listening to unravel, their catalogue doesn't even have an easy place for the uninitiated to start. Still though, the fact remains that PIXIES are one of the most influential bands of all time, with everyone from Nirvana to Radiohead citing them as influences.
Based on rating 7.5/10
Pixies' post-reformation releases have been burdened with a problem. There is no way that the band can capture their epoch-defining original four albums (and one mini-album). How could they? The world is different, they are different, heck, music is different! The previous LPs, 2014's Indie Cindy and 2016's Head Carrier, sounded like a band trying to rediscover how to be Pixies and not quite getting there.
Based on rating 7/10
On their third post-reunion album, Pixies do what they failed to on Indie Cindy and Head Carrier: suggest a way forward for their music. Too often on those albums, it felt like the band was trying to live up to someone else's expectations of what they should sound like. On Beneath the Eyrie, however, it sounds like they weren't trying to please anyone but themselves; paradoxically, the results are their most engaging set of songs since they reunited.
Based on rating 3.5/5
In 2018 Pixies celebrated the 30th anniversary of 'Come On Pilgrim' and 'Surfer Rosa' - two records that cemented their place in indie rock history. It seems that much of the raw sound and bite of those two influential releases has been channeled once again for 'Beneath The Eyrie' - the band's best album since reforming in 2004. Joey Santiago's licks on 'This Is My Fate' hark back to 1987 classic 'Nimrod's Son', Paz Lenchantin does her best Kim Deal on slow-burning ballad 'Los Surfers Muertos', and scuzzed up blues number 'St.
Based on rating 7/10
All the ingredients for a Pixies album are present on Beneath the Eyrie: somewhat bizarre lyrics, jarring instrumentals and delicate harmonies from the female bassist — yet there's something missing. Strictly instrumentally, Beneath the Eyrie has some of the Pixies' most polished work, evident in "On Graveyard Hill" and album opener "In the Arms of Mrs. Mark of Cain." On her second album recording with Pixies, Paz Lenchantin's bass lines are a notable highlight throughout the album and are worth focusing on. There's a fiery ….
Based on rating 6.7/10
During all those years that fans clamored for new music following the band's 2004 reunion, who could have predicted that expectations for a new Pixies album would ever sink so low? After nearly a decade spent growing rusty on the reunion circuit, the band deflated what little excitement remained following Kim Deal's departure with Indie Cindy, a comeback that not only failed to recreate their old mystique, but struggled to even understand what made the band so alluring in the first place. The sinister spark, the mischief, that giddy confusion they stirred with their blur of candy and sadism--it was totally absent, replaced by an at best anonymous, at worst obnoxious shrug of secondhand tics. At least things couldn't get any worse.
Opinion: Great
The Lowdown: As more people than ever now know, Pixies are the band who maybe didn't invent alternative rock but put it all together: the noise with the pop, the soft with the loud, Black Francis' deranged shrieks with Kim Deal's sweetening harmonies. These dynamics almost single-handedly summoned Kurt Cobain, whose hometown of Aberdeen gets a shout-out in "Catfish Kate", the first single from Beneath the Eyrie. This is the third album Pixies have released since their 2004 reunion after splitting up in 1991.
Opinion: Fairly Good
T he dilemma for any re-formed band is whether to try and re-create their "classic sound" or try to develop it, to avoid becoming a tribute to themselves. Thus, Pixies' third album since reuniting largely shuns the loud-quiet-loud dynamic of their first four albums, which influenced grunge and indie rock for at least a decade. The default mode here is more conventionally anthemic alternative rock: American gothic meets British goth.
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