Frank Black: Frank Black (4AD CAD 3004 CD/MC/LP)

PUNCH ME out if I mention The Pixies more than twice. Times have changed and Black Francis wants us to call him Frank Black. This record, superficially cluttered but beating with a heartcore of strength and bewilderment, is the kind of statement you need to make on emerging from an intense love affair to prove you're back on your own two feet, despite still being saturated with the loved-one's influence. Now he sounds less like the voice of a lewd, belligerent singing mound; there's an intimacy in songs like 'Fu Manchu' and 'Every Time I Go Around Here' that demonstrates a more refined method of drawing the listener into the strange heart of these gumball vignettes.