Pixies
Beneath The Eyrie

It is inevitable that with every new Pixies release, ears are well-tuned.

We are talking about a seminal band for alternative rock, which has openly influenced many bands in the genre and still often plays in a different league from the others. "Beneath The Eyrie" is the third album since the reunion that took place fifteen years ago (the seventh overall), and it is absolutely fair to say it's the best of the three.

The previous "Head Carrier" (released in 2016) was a good album, full of great tracks, yet it somewhat lacked cohesion and perhaps suffered from the then-recent addition of former Swan Paz Lechantin on bass (replacing a key member like Kim Deal must not have been easy), even though the lovely Paz handled it more than well.

Now the Pixies give the impression of knowing exactly where to go, and they deliver a compact, inspired, and incredibly cohesive record. Sure, there isn't the immediacy of tracks like "Tenement Song," "All I Think About Now," and "Classic Masher," but the writing flows smoothly and contributes to composing an extremely convincing soundscape.

The lead single "On Graveyard Hill" has all the elements of the classic Pixies Sound, just as "Catfish Kate" may be the only link with the catchier episodes of the previous release. Noteworthy is the beautiful crescendo of the fantastic "Silver Bullet," along with numerous tracks where the interplay between Santiago's guitar and Lechantin's bass makes the difference, navigating among the most disparate fascinations (the Tex-Mex in the sumptuous "Silver Bullet," the Nick Cave of "Bird Of Prey"), only to return to the classic Pixies sound with the new extract "St. Nazaire" and close with the psych of "Daniel Boone" and the very dark "Death Horizon."

It is a joy to hear a band like the Pixies again reaching such high levels. "Beneath The Eyrie" is an excellent record, which definitively cements the newfound cohesion of the American band and reiterates once again that the Pixies are not just their glorious past, but also have a promising and rediscovered future ahead of them.

Best track: Silver Bullet