When you hear about the history of rock music in the transition from the 80s into the 90s, it‰’s almost impossible to avoid someone saying how Nirvana was the final nail in the casket of glam and hair metal. If Nirvana‰’s success finally buried that horrid trend of music, it was the Pixies who knocked it unconscious and dragged it into the coffin in the first place. Almost a quarter of a century has passed, yet their guitar-driven whisper to scream formula is still well-ingrained in Boston rock tradition.

The Pixies work as a smorgasbord of musical elements that on paper, shouldn‰’t work at all. Black Francis sounds like he just escaped from an insane asylum with his menacing whispers that turn into screams at a moment‰’s notice. He‰’ll also throw in some Spanish for good measure. Kim Deal sounds outright innocent next to him, even when she‰’s singing about sexual encounters in back allies or the dismemberment of any number of body parts. Lyrically, the band is fascinated with mental and bodily disintegration, with Francis admitting to being heavily inspired by surrealism and images that make no logical sense. There are also a lot of references to the ocean being a near mystical place where man dumps his trash and occasionally his own life in songs like “Monkey Gone To Heaven‰” and “Wave of Mutilation.‰” The Pixies seem to be striking at some sort of relationship between the filth of modernity and spirituality, but Francis is abstract enough that these images add up to a general impression rather than anything explicit.

Instrumentally, the album has a perfect synergy among Deal‰’s round, fat simplistic bass lines and the buzzing guitar work of Black Francis and Joey Santiago. David Lovering‰’s drums sound very physical, as they act as the sonic punches to accompany Francis‰’s themes of bodily harm.

In all truth, the Pixies were the beginning of indie rock as we know it today. They never sound entirely like they‰’re taking themselves that seriously even when singing songs inspired by Biblical stories and the destruction of the environment by society‰’s overproduction of everything. The album feels like The Replacements went entirely insane and the lyrics and loud/quiet/loud bipolar dynamics of the songs only add to this insanity. You know that you‰’ve released a priceless piece of rock history when bands from Nirvana to Modest Mouse have admitted to starting out with no other intent than ripping off the Pixies.