Album review: Pixies, Head Carrier

Grunge godfathers The Pixies have through their career had to reckon with the expectations of a fanbase at once rabidly loyal and supremely judgemental. Bossanova in 1990 was heralded as the desperate flailings of a group in terminal decline (it’s true, kids — Pixies fans HATED Bossanova when it came out). More vitriolic yet was the backlash against 1991’s Trompe le Monde, which scandalously deployed keyboards and relatively sophisticated studio arrangements.

Yet both were rehabilitated as classics within a few years (Trompe le Monde is Dave Grohl’s favourite album). It’s not unthinkable that a similar reappraisal may eventually be due to Head Carrier, which, a week out from its release, has already been dismissed as a pallid pastiche of Black Francis and company’s glory years.