Never trust an artist's opinion on his own recordings.
Frank Black
calls
Frank Black and the Catholics
the "best recording [he] ever made," ignoring a decade worth of great, innovative
indie rock
. A better assessment may be:
is the most direct record he's ever made. If you just want
garage punk
, stripped of all the odd time signatures, subverted chord progressions, cryptic lyrics, and sonic experimentation that marked his first two albums, as well as his work with
the Pixies
, this album may satisfy your needs. Then again, all those "frills" were part of the reason
Black
was such a respected and influential artist, and without them he sounds disturbingly conventional. Fortunately,
The Catholics
doesn't trade in the sub-
metal
cliches that plagued
The Cult of Ray
, concentrating on straight-ahead
. There are some good hooks on the songs and the performances have some real energy, but all the songs wind up blending into each other by the end of the record. On the whole, it's a step forward from
, but it still feels like a retreat from his entire body of work. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine