Frank Black
Honeycomb
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Frank Black
Honeycomb
Back Porch Records, 2005
RiYL: Lambchop, Dylan's Nashville Skyline, American Music Club |
He busted up his longtime band the Catholics a couple years back and has spent 2004 and 2005 soaking up some long-overdue adulation on a couple megatours as frontman of his other, more famous and influential band the Pixies. And now we get the return of Frank Black "solo" with the album Honeycomb -- the big guy crooning a set of humble tunes backed by some of Nashville's finest session musicians, including Steve Cropper, Spooner Oldham, David Hood and Anton Fig.
Judging from the audiences at the recent Pixies performances compared to those at Catholics shows from a few years back, there are fans out there who are only familiar with Frank's work as a youth, in which he screamed along to his own angular post-punk, pre-grunge UFO tales and masturbation fantasies as Pixies leader Black Francis.
Such a fan will probably greet the release of Honeycomb with surprise and wonder how the singer of "Broken Face" and "Planet Of Sound" fits in with this country motif. But those who have followed his career over the past decade realize that the new record is hardly a departure for big Frank. His most recent recorded work (see: Black Letter Days and Show Me Your Tears) leaned heavily on a style of rootsy rock and roll that could probably best be termed Americana. Recording with Spooner, Steve and co. couldn't have been a more natural step for this first post-Catholics Black release.
The record was recorded quickly, in about a business week's worth of 9-5 sessions, befitting all the participants' favored recording methods. Ever since 1998's Frank Black And The Catholics, Black has endeavored to make all his recordings playing live to two-track. It requires a talented band and a lack of reliance on overdubs, meaning what you hear on the record is what the musicians heard while they were playing in the studio. There's a kind of honesty conveyed by listening to such a record, and Honeycomb is no exception.
Black, now a remarried man and new father, was going through a divorce around the time he wrote this album, and it's chock-a-block with breakup songs, a hint that Black probably gave a little more of himself on Honeycomb than he usually likes to in his writing. Songs like "Another Velvet Nightmare," "Strange Goodbye," and "Lone Child" convey the mindset of a man lost at sea emotionally, crooning and musing on days gone by and wondering what to do with life from this moment on. The band really does a great job filling in these songs with music that fits the mood splendidly. The haunting guitar solo in "My Life Is In Storage," for instance, is about as sad and beautiful as the instrument can be.
Which is not to say the entire album is a downer. The Sir Douglas Quintet cover "Sunday Sunny Mill Valley Groove Day" lives up to its name as the record's most upbeat moment, and closer "Sing For Joy," while rife with depressing lyrics, has a positive message -- sing for joy and laughs, because it doesn't do anyone any good to focus on the bad stuff in life.
The jaunty "Song Of The Shrimp," an Elvis Presley cover from the "Girls, Girls, Girls" movie, is a slightly bizarre bluesy parable that illustrates what things would be like if the old weird Frank Black had been a country singer. "Goodbye Mommy Shrimp, and Papa shake my hand," the protagonist hails in the chorus, "Here come the shrimp boat for to take me to Lou-see-an'." In an Aesop-like turn in that the young crustacean's enthusiasm to make it big in life leads to his demise, but he jumps into the net a happy shrimp.
Frank's measured crooning on many of the songs shows him really trying hard to live up to the prestige of the band he's playing with, and he comes across as a good singer. Here's a guy who has an almost 20-year career going in rock and roll, and tens of thousands of fans, but you can tell he's still trying to find himself as a musician and he has insecurities as most of us do. But he doesn't need to, because Black has proven himself a talent in almost everything he's put his hands to. Honeycomb is just another notch in his formidable belt, and the beat goes on. There's enough highway and enough rock and roll clubs in this country to keep Frank Black going for decades to come. I'll drink to that.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.