Dig For Fire - A Tribute To Pixies (Review)

Pixies were the ultimate influence for a lot of today's indie rockers. Their overlapping-if-not-harmonious vocals, brilliant lyrics (touched with insanity) and groundbreaking instrumentals blew minds and speaker stacks everywhere. Pixies were the godfathers (and godmother) of alt-rock for a generation to come, with even Kurt Cobain name-dropping their music as motivation towards his masterworks.

That said, paying tribute to a band like this could be one of two things: 1) An incredible honor, being able to bring these influences full circle back to the source, or 2) A nerve-wracking journey of self-doubt, hopefully ending with a rendition to be proud of. I’ve got a feeling there’s a good mix of the two on each track - which can either lead to a faithful-to-the-original cover, or an experimental vision that morphs the song into an entirely new entity. There are some hits and misses, but the CD is a respectable and entertaining effort to capture that Pixies spirit.

Oddly though, the most high profile bands in this project – They Might Be Giants, OK GO and Mogwai – produced three of the weakest tracks on the disc. None were outright stinkers, but just not up snuff with the rest of it. TMBG’s take on “Havalina” starts great – the pure fact of an accordion in use in a Pixies song could’ve clinched it, but the too-deep vocals didn’t mesh, and the song became just mediocre. OK GO cover “Gigantic”, and from their past works I expected more speed and levity. What we get is a slow and plodding version that employs too much background noise, ending in a giant cacophonous puddle. Which brings us to Mogwai with “Gouge Away”, speaking of noise. The distortion that often worked well for Pixies is the downfall for these guys – it’s overuse nearly drowns out the song playing in the background, vocals and instruments alike.

But the real treasures on the album come from the names I didn’t recognize, which was a pleasant surprise. The Rosebuds do “Break My Body” as an almost spoken-word effort, and the subdued female vocals over up-tempo guitar hit really well. On the same note, Joy Zipper’s take on “Wave of Mutilation” worked on the same level – slow and steady female vox, but this time staying a little closer to the subject material, a great combo. Some of the best efforts have a completely new structure, though, Like the Bedroom Walls doing “Stormy Weather”. Yes, the same slow build is there, gaining speed to add to the tempest of the tune – but the accidentally-on-purpose guitar (never quite hitting that chord), the (I believe) xylophone and the brooding vocals add a great touch. On almost the opposite end of the spectrum, did anyone order a dance remix? Well, the Fashion Victims provide one with their “Hey (Double Dragon Mix)” opus. The mix of techno backbeat, rock guitar and synth with lounge swagger works surprisingly well. And as strange as that all sounds, the vocalist actually seems to best capture Black Francis’ trademark laugh and growl - y'know, when he's not crooning...

All told, this CD provides common ground to showcase some amazing talent. I can’t wait to get my hands on some original material from a lot of these bands – and most of them are highly visible between MySpace and their own sites. For more info about this particular album, as well as more American Laundromat projects, go the the ALR website:
http://www.alr-music.com/

That's it for now - more coming soon...