In perfect Halloween spirit, alternative-rock band Pixies’s most recent release, The Night the Zombies Came, puts a gothic spin on their signature style. As the first album released since new bassist Emma Richardson (formerly with Band of Skulls) joined the lineup, the LP is hefty, featuring 13 tracks and a total runtime of 39 minutes. Lacking the spark of breakthrough alternative rock albums “Doolittle” and “Surfer Rosa,” The Night the Zombies Came seems to be a longshot from the Pixies’ former glory. The elements that once defined the Pixies — their trademark weirdness, their genre-bending approach and Kim Deal’s intricate bass lines — are gone and replaced with a more straightforward, less impactful sound.
At least, that was my initial impression. As someone mostly familiar with the Pixies’ ’80s and ’90s music, I expected … more. The Pixies not only bent but revolutionized their own genre of rock in the ’90s, inspiring bands like Nirvana, Radiohead, Weezer and the Smashing Pumpkins. But it’s 2024, and the Pixies are no longer college-dropouts trying to carve their niche in the 1990s alternative rock scene. To admit that they’ve aged is to admit that their sound has aged; it’s lost the screaming angst of youth and is replaced by something more familiar, more stable — perhaps not worse, but undeniably different. The bold experimentation that defined their past work has evolved into a more assured confidence. Although The Night the Zombies Came cannot hold a candle to the Pixies’ legacy, the album is not necessarily poor in quality; a fun, eclectic mix of songs, the album is an odd and apocalyptic showcase of the Pixies’ enduring creativity.
The album begins on a subdued note with “Primrose,” an atmospheric ballad of uncertainty that flirts with a folk-punk sound. Backed by an acoustic rhythm, a quivering guitar and a chilling bass line, frontman Black Francis and new bassist Emma Richardson share the song vocally. Slow, haunting and cleverly layered, “Primrose” is an indulgent taste of the Pixies’ new sound.
The energy picks up with the upbeat “You’re So Impatient.” Originally released as a single off the new album, “You’re So Impatient” flaunts Joey Santiago’s tastefully distorted guitar line (featuring a short solo around the 1:27 mark), fun lyrics and the Pixies’ signature dynamic shifts.
Title track “Jane (The Night the Zombies Came),” adorned lavishly in layers of instrumentation, tells a story of a zombie apocalypse both through slow lyric delivery and a cinematic, almost orchestral execution. The next two songs, “Chicken” and “Hypnotised,” follow in the same vein of dramatism, featuring weeping guitars, blown-up choruses and exaggerated tempo changes.
“Johnny Good Man” pivots into more of an art-rock sound, layering a flamboyant yet relatively repetitive riff over self-deprecating lyrics: “This is just a drinking song / Something just for me to sing along,” Francis sings. Though it feels like filler, the song serves as a nice transition into “Motoroller,” which amps up the melodrama, capitalizing on Francis’ and Richardson’s harmonies in another ’70s-art-rock-esque track. This ’70s-rock influence persists with “I Hear You Mary,” where guitarist Joey Santiago and drummer David Levering take over with powerful instrumentation; however, the overblown instrumental lines only underscore the general flatness of the song itself. The upbeat “Oyster Beds” follows; reminiscent of classic hard-and-fast rock, the song seems less charming than anachronistic in its execution.
“Mercy Me,” the next song up, takes a completely different turn into a country-rock style song with only a hint of the punk that defines the Pixies’ work. Backed with an acoustic guitar line, husky vocals, and lyrics about “Tennessee,” “country music” and “guitars,” the album makes a confusing diversion from the art-rock style of the last few songs. Although it might not quite work with the album, the song once again flaunts Francis and Richardson’s harmonies in a melancholic song of loss and longing.
With a fast, rockabilly sound, “Ernest Evans” takes the listener out of the sentimentality of “Mercy Me” in a sobering mix of crash cymbals and an enthusiastic guitar line.
The album then ventures into more folksy territory with the next song, “Kings of the Prairie,” a sweet and upbeat song that begins to wind down the album.
The final track, “The Vegas Suite,” follows “Kings of the Prairie” in its acoustic intro but quickly merges the folk influences with a more punk rock sound. Black sings about a hope for some sort of redemption, almost religious in his language: “He’s coming today / he’s coming to save us / I hope he don’t hate us / I hope he forgave us,” the chorus repeats.
Cohesive not quite in sound but in its gothic themes, “The Night the Zombies Came” may not quite live up to the Pixies’ past glory but holds its own as a solid Halloween album. Though I haven’t quite finished mourning the Pixies’ old sound, The Night the Zombies Came is enjoyable in its own right: it’s unfettered in its creativity, cleanly executed and delightfully whimsical. I’m excited to see what this new era of the Pixies will bring in the future.
Yaelin Hough is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at yh2299@cornell.edu.
