Pixies LANDMARK: Come On Pilgrim by: Ben Moroni Mon:10-Dec-07 Label: 4AD Year: 1987 WB rating 86 out of 100

Ahhh, how music grows on the soul! Early last year, if you mentioned The Pixies to me, my mind would have brought fourth vague recollections of some yelling about slashing up eyeballs, as well as another tune that features in the credits of Fight Club, and a song about a Monkey. This initial spark become somewhat of a fire during a moment of guilty indulgence watching The OC (come on we’ve all done it!), when the first track mentioned above (‘Debaser’) was included in a scene that just screamed naughties cool, with the retro reference conveying the yearning spirit of many in our generation... This gave me a small amount of hope in pop culture. At least they weren’t just trying to look cool by wearing t-shirts of old bands, like those twins from Full House, in some desperate movie. No, this was the actual art form itself from a time passed, heaven forbid!

So I went out and bought Doolittle and to cut a long story short, I was hooked. From there I went on to discover the band’s other records, the one stuck in my listening loop at the moment being Surfer Rosa & Come on Pilgrim, a compilation of the band’s first album, with the preceding ‘EP’ tacked on at the end. Come on Pilgrim is, however, much more than a typical EP. It is a remarkable first release from a supremely influential band. As their name implies, they truly have some sort of mystical quality that comes through in their music.

This album was written by Frank Black at a point in his life where he is trying to unravel the mysteries of heading into adulthood. Even at this young age Black’s vocal variation is staggering, and this allows him to deliver the emotion of his lyrics with great conviction, even if at times these meanings are hard to determine. The product of Black’s questioning has proven to be both long lasting and prestigious, resonating with every Pixies’ fan and fostering the band’s influence on Nirvana – the well publicised fact that Kurt Cobain was quoted as saying “I was basically trying to rip off The Pixies” in a interview about ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ gives qualitative proof to the latter point.

In the case of Nirvana, this influence rubbed off in a positive way, with the band taking elements of the Pixies, but organically creating a sound apart from these origins. Cobain wanted to have less of a hidden agenda in his art – the brutal and self-deprecating trashing of his band’s equipment on stage giving weight to this. And while Cobain and Black’s writing styles are similar in their lack of obvious meaning, the focus in Cobain’s case with Nevermind, was the more socially acceptable ‘problem’ of teen angst. Black however, at least with this album, hones in on the troubles of those entering the world of the young adult and all the responsibility this entails. Black, perhaps more than any other in this genre, is a confidant for those lost souls crying out “What the fuck does it all mean?” or “What the hell should I do now?”

With the aforementioned variation of Black’s vocals in mind, the opener ‘Caribou’ could be renamed ‘Caribou (Exihibit A),’ with ‘Vamos’ and ‘Isla De Encanta’ increasing the evidence to a point beyond questioning. Often, the opening tracks of an album can be basted in unjustified glory, as they are an easy focal point. However ‘Caribou’ fully captures the enchanting quality of the band: from the opening soaring chord, to Kim Deal’s beautiful backing, the deeply poetic lyrics and finally the meltdown screaming chorus, where Black preaches: “REPENT, REPENT, REPENT, RE-HE-PENT!” While i’m not brave enough to try to dissect the lyrics to a great extent, lines such as “I live cement, I hate this street/This human form, where I was born/Give me white, ground to run” point to a frustration with urban existence, and a wish for a return to the beauty contained in nature.

In the punk-rock driven, ‘Vamos’ he continues trying to unravel the enigmas of life, developing a simple but plausible formula for existence on earth, “We’ll keep well bred, we’ll stay well fed, we’ll have our sons, that will be all well hung’. Joey Santiago’s high pitched screeching guitar and Black’s randomly placed mating calls scream angst behind the happy facade. The Pixies’ trademark of Black’s strumming acoustic rhythm providing a nice platform for Santiago to explode with his surfie drones, continues on ‘Ed is Dead,’ ‘The Holiday Song,’ and ‘Nimrod’s Son.’ The album finishes brilliantly with the lighter and more optimistic tracks ‘I’ve Been Tired,’ and ‘Levitate Me.’ The first still contains the band’s trademark moments of madness, while the closing track tones down to a nice full stop. The relation to Black’s searching at the start of the album is still there, but a more positive and lighter character has emerged – as if the journey was as cathartic an experience for the songwriter as it has been for its many admirers.