Frank Black Francis

With the explosive dynamics that made The Pixies so essential, you’d think Frank Black solo-acoustic in a Boston apartment just wouldn’t cut it. But disc one of this new release—a collection of demos from the 1987 Come On Pilgrim sessions—is beautiful in its naked, haunting simplicity. Unfortunately, disc two’s cache of amorphous, New Age-y, re-recorded Pixies standards falls flat. But since you’re getting two CDs for the price of one here, it doesn’t much diminish the set’s value.