Sound: Bossanova is the Pixie's 3. studio album. The first albums (mainly Surfer Rosa and Doolittle) had a raw, grunge style sound. Bossanova changes this, and uses a more clean and melodic sound. Black Francis (the frontman) and lead guitarist Joey Santiago were fans of surf rock, which is used in this album as a step apart from the Pixie's traditional abrasive and grunge sound. I don't find this negative, the first two albums are enough of grunge sound to listen to, so this is a refreshing album. At this point, Black Francis took the creative control of the Pixies, which resulted in almost breaking the band apart. Grunge sound can be still heard in the title "Rock Music". "Cecilia Ann" is a nice surf rock title. "Velouria" is in my opinion, one of the albums best songs. A very atmospheric sound. Other songs like "Ana" and "Havalina" bring the new clean sound of the Pixies. All in all, a diverse and good album. // 8
Lyrics and Singing: The lyrics are still cryptic and often hard to understand. Black Francis has left the surrealist and biblical fiction lyrics and brought up new UFO, alien and space/universe theme. Black Francis screams here too, but also sings clearly and softly. Songs like "Ana" and "Havalina" are very moody and are great to listen too. The UFO theme can be best heard at the song "The Happening" and the space theme can be heard in tribute song to Mose Allison called "Allison". "Dig for Fire" is a tribute to the Talking Heads. // 8
Impression: This album is worth to listen. It steps away from "Doolittle" and "Surfer Rosa", if you are a hardcore grunge fan, or like the raw sounds of these albums then "Bossanova" will not give you that sound. I find it a excellent album. "Velouria", "Dig for Fire", "The Happening", "Havalina", "Cecilia Ann". There isn't a single song which I find boring or bad, but the flaw in this album is the lack of quality bass play. Kim Deal and her bass playing can't be heard here, only simple tunes. I find this a shame, because the song "Hey" has a legendary bass intro, which I will never forget. // 9
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