Dark, country tinged rock songs. If Frank Black is trying to model his career on Lou Reed’s, he’s doing a good job so far. Compare: both start their careers with four albums of abso-fuck-a-lootly brilliant work with a seminal, genre shaping band, then proceed to a steady stream of solo albums of ever-decreasing brilliance. Following these trends, in 20 years Black will be recording tripped out spoken word interpretations of mid-19th century American poets. This album, meanwhile, is Black’s equivalent to “Coney Island Baby”: a nice, accessible, yet somehow mediocre album. It’s decidedly countrified, with piano and steel guitar all over. Black’s vocals are laconic, and only rarely do we see the old Pixies-esque energy. Still, it does a decent job when it tries to be darker, and hopefully it can tide us all over till the reunion tour.

Best tracks: 2, then 1, 5, 7, 8, 10.

*1. Dark, bass-heavy blues. A little bit of screaming. Yay!
**2. Mellow, catchy. My favorite on the album.
3. Unimpressive countryish song. Bad lyrics.
4. Riff driven, mid-tempo rocker. A bit too Rod Stewart-y (who would’ve thought you could ever say that about a Frank Black song?)
*5. Slow, dark, lots of piano.
6. Up-tempo, so-so country ballad. One ‘fuck’ near the end.
*7. Good rocker, cool falsetto, strong breakdown. Rock!
*8. Softer, sad. I like it.
9. Waaay too country.
*10. Dark, moody. Got some cool moans in there.
11. Mediocre, but short.