The new Pixies’ album, Doggerel is a mature yet visceral record of gruesome folk, ballroom pop and brutal rock, haunted by the ghosts of affairs and indulgences, driven wild by cosmic forces and envisioning digital afterlives where no God has provided one. And all the while, right there on the news, another distant storm approaches.
Doggerel is a record with an unusual genesis. Instead of building upon rough ideas in the studio, Black Francis turned up to sessions with 40 songs prepared. Sessions started late in 2021 with producer Tom Dalgety (Royal Blood, Ghost) working with Francis in Massachusetts before they headed to LA to finish tracks with the rest of the band.
Guitarist Joey Santiago says, “This time around we have grown. We no longer have under two-minute songs. We have little breaks, more conventional arrangements but still our twists in there.”
Santiago contributed his first two Pixies songwriting credits, with music for “Dregs Of The Wine” and lyrics for “Doggerel.” Meanwhile, drummer David Lovering and bassist Paz Lenchantin’s performances have the uninhibited energy of two musicians who both confess to feeling reinvigorated by the process.
Vocalist/guitarist Black Francis added, “We're trying to do things that are very big and bold and orchestrated. The punky stuff, I really like playing it but you just cannot artificially create that shit. There's another way to do this, there's other things we can do with this extra special energy that we're encountering.”