New music from Pixies feels like a rare yet necessary experience. It happens frequently, and since their reunion, the band has been prolific, if a little uneven. You’re So Impatient may be a drag for those who wanted the qualities of the glory days so soon after a reunion. We are impatient because we have seen what others are doing, what is now capable of bands returning to the stage with the assistance of established records. The freedom to create and pull an audience through with your hits is a neat slot to be in. It is the sort of rug-pull Wheatus has. But for Pixies it is not needed. Their latest efforts have been nowhere close to the exceptional standard they were known for, but latest single You’re So Impatient is a halfway there attempt. We are a way off The Night the Zombie Came. There is still room for improvement.
Their garage rock revival sound starts sweet enough. Coughing and spluttering his way through the instrumental rise, a heavy-set and steady piece, Frank Black warns of horror shows and cursed dates. Joey Santiago makes for a solid guitarist here, feeling the flow as he so often does for these latter-day Pixies tracks. But You’re So Impatient is not given the chance to grow or move into a new idea. It is over before you know it. Frank Black is spent and instead of a bolder, ambitious project, the band pairs it with a cover of Que Sera Sera from two years ago. An interesting song and benefits from the gothic tone taken by the band here but a bit of a letdown considering the push towards thematically different materials. They hope to go for the lighter side of goth rock with their imagery but do not have the instrumental effectiveness to back it.
But that is the rock and a hard place Pixies find themselves in. To lift their instrumentals away from their established sound is to rock the boat, but to stick with it too much is to poke holes in their survival. It is not that You’re So Impatient and Que Sera Sera are poor quality, they are far from it, but some spark has been extinguished in Pixies since their reunion. As a touring unit, they seem as tight as ever, but it falls to pieces in the recording studio. They still search for the form which guided them to being favourites of the time. You’re So Impatient feels like a flat bit of rock filler when compared to the Ray Evans original.
Why the tone of the track turns to medieval references and mutton is unknowable. It does little for the band and less for Black, whose two-minute chance at redeeming his lyrical slump fails. Impatience is mocked with the dispiriting and not-at-all-unique moments of bad dates and boxed wine. These are just the scratches of a wider image not yet proven. You’re So Impatient may call on us to give Pixies a little more time but a decade on from their first new release of the reunion and patience is running out. Time is dwindling and the more Pixies align themselves with the humdrum of what will likely be another bog standard, unmemorable experience. When your cover of a classic outshines your new original just by providing a moodier edge which should feel its way through The Night the Zombie Came, you know there is trouble ahead.
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