Pixies
At The BBC
Elektra
The Pixies’ career, according to the notes on this, spanned six years and five albums. This collection of live John Peel sessions makes it the third album of the band’s material (after last year’s double-CD Death to the Pixies) to be released posthumously… we’re past the halfway point here, folks.
Anyway, most of these tracks demonstrate the band’s raw energy, which is pretty good most of the time, but somewhat blunted without the razor-sharp production the Pixies adopted through their career. Interesting material includes a cover of the Beatles’ “Wild Honey Pie,” an even surfier “Wave of Mutilation,” and the raucous closing of “In Heaven” (also a Heinous Bienfäng favorite). This isn’t quite the strongest introduction to the band (for that, check out either of their first albums), but it works well enough off its live nature, and is a worthy document for a Pixies collector.
