Album Review: The Night the Zombies Came by Pixies

An album that’s light, supple and tender, full of balladry and spacey arrangements that seek to soothe and soften your mood rather than make you want to breathe fire With the release of The Night the Zombies Came, Pixies have now released more albums post-reformation as they did pre-breakup. That's four studio albums with, and five without, Kim Deal – but she still casts a massive shadow. Her position – occupied in her absence by Simon Archer, Kim Shattuck (RIP), Paz Lenchantin (who was unceremoniously booted out of the band a few months ago), and now Emma Richardson of Band Of Skulls – has never had the same prestige or aura as when she was in it.

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With the amount of times listeners pray for a turnaround, get spoon-fed a half-decent group of singles that seem to foreshadow the second coming of Doolittle, and inevitably get let down like they were waiting for their absentee Dad who really promised to be at Christmas this year, no really, Pixies are close to being the musical Frank Gallagher. It's starting to be our fault. In the case of The Night the Zombies Came, Black Francis seems to clock-in moments before each recording starts, clocking-out with a relieved exhale as each track hits the final concert-focused "BUM" as it closes.

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It’s hard to believe that with The Night the Zombies Came, Pixies have now released more albums without Kim Deal than with her legendary contributions. That is assuming we are not counting the debut mini-album Come on Pilgrim (1987), in which case, the math is different, but the effect is much the same. For those keeping score, the first iteration of the band with Deal contains Surfer Rosa (1988) through Trompe le Monde (1991).

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If one takes 2022's 'Doggerel' as cementing the idea of a Pixies 2.0, the record which fully realised the glimmers of greatness that threatened through 2016's 'Head Carrier' and 2019's 'Beneath the Eyrie' while discourse raged (and rages) on, then, to make like its protagonists and borrow a phrase from our French cousins, plus ça change. 'The Night The Zombies Came' is unmistakeably Pixies: 'Kings of the Prairie', 'Johnny Good Man' and opener 'Primrose' perhaps the most 'them' of all. There's some choice wordplay, from the lost dog ballad 'Mercy Me' including the invocation "…and I prayed to Saint Bernard", to closer 'The Vegas Suite' managing to rhyme "save us", "hate us", "forgave us" and the titular "Vegas".

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A band forming at college is a tale as old as time. Interpol, Talking Heads, Death Cab for Cutie – the list goes on. It makes sense: Holden Caulfields forming artistic bandits to help navigate first tastes of freedom and underage alcohol. So, when Joey Santiago and Black Francis met at a college in Massachusetts, another band destined for the hall of fame emerged from a scruffy dorm room: PIXIES.

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The Pixies's The Night the Zombies Came sees the first major change in personnel for the band since Paz Lenchantin took over as bassist and backing vocalist a decade ago. Lenchantin, who was unceremoniously removed from the lineup earlier this year, has been replaced by English musician and visual artist Emma Richardson, formerly of Band of Skulls. Richardson, whose vocals are featured prominently throughout, sings an octave above lead singer Black Francis, who even steps away from the mic on occasion to let her sing solo.

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