Frank Black’s two new albums

Not many people could pull it off but Frank Black and The Catholics: the former Pixies singer’s two albums are released on the same day, ‘Black Letter Days’ and ‘Devil’s Workshop’. Two individual discs stretch to some 98 minutes of music, unevenly divided over the discs, the latter containing only 30 minutes.

‘Black Letter Days’, recorded in LA, and ‘Devil’s Workshop’, completed soon after in a North Hollywood rehearsal complex, demonstrate Black’s wandering soul. There are no rules, no restrictions, no genre boundaries are respected, this is a band playing for the love of it. ‘BLD’ kicks in immediately with cover of Tom Waits’s ‘The Black Rider’, that recalls Iggy Pop’s more energetic days, while the closing version is funkier and a more adventurous one...

‘How You Went Too Far’ is an extraordinary blues in the Delta tradition, while ‘1826’ brings in native-American flavour to its raw rocking. Some other cuts bring country (‘n’western) echoes to this sonic melange as well as rock-reconstruction in ‘Jane The Queen of Love’, with ‘I Will Run After You’ sounding as Bob Dylan’s ‘mind child’.

‘Devil’s Workshop’ is a more balanced affair, restrained, more emotive, partially melancholic and it offers an opportunity for Mr Black to explore his crooning style, in particular on tracks like ‘San Antonio, TX’, with its quirky jig and ‘Heloise’, toying with vocal delivery that appears to ‘combine’ a take on Lou Reed, Graham Parsons and Mick Jagger (especially a falsetto bit) techniques. ‘Modern Age’ also pays tribute to Reed but countrified and there are eight other tracks that capture the essence of human feelings in a very short time.

Although spontaneity is very important, every creative person knows that not every idea is worth preserving and noting all down is useless exercise unless it survives a night’s ‘judgement’. There are some songs on this two discs that either should have been worked on or edited out but, as a document to a creative process, it is invaluable.

Frank Black and The Catholics might not be breaking the mould but are certainly delivering quality, for the major part.

7.9/10 (‘Black Letter Days’)
8/10 (‘Devil’s Workshop’)