Rockbites: Frank Black sculpts fire on Dog In The Sand

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December 2000 • Rockbites Alternative Daily

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Frank Black sculpts fire on Dog In The Sand
15 December 2000

Frank Black (aka Black Francis, born Charles Michael Kitteridge Thompson IV) releases his third album with his band The Catholics worldwide at the end of January, on What Are Records? in the US and on Cooking Vinyl for the UK and Europe.
    Like his two previous LPs with the Catholics, Black shunned modern multi-track, multi-take recording practices and layed down the entire album live to stereo tape. It’s a technique common in jazz but extremely rare in rock, depending as it does on everyone doing everything right all at once—on both sides of the studio glass. And they do. Dog In The Sand is vibrant with energy and is a sonic masterpiece.
    Frank Black’s music is never obvious. You simply can’t get it the first couple of times through (hence his lack of radio success) and now I think I understand a bit about why. More than any other rock artist I know, his songs contain interesting structure at multiple scales, often up to the span of the entire song—and even across the full album. Some of the larger scale structure is just invisible until you’ve passed it through your brain a few times.
    For example, the dark and ominous intro to I’ve Seen Your Picture provides an eerie foundation to the bright and poignantly optimistic chorus, which in turn disarms you just before you get hit in the face with a grimy, aggressive bridge. The song then trips over itself like some hectic memory and ends rather abruptly. The lingering emptiness becomes a component as well, referring back to the intro and with it elegantly framing what comes between. And all this in under three minutes. I’ve Seen Your Picture stands as a highly cohesive piece, a brilliant example of the total being far more than the sum of the parts. And on first listen you probably won’t get it.
    Black’s lyrics bear study, too, and thankfully they’re included in the CD insert. Consider

Robert lead me into thought
Onion layers wait for you
Bounty of eternal fields
Every muscle knot I feel.

Robert tell me what to do
Tell exactly what you’re not
...
Brandishing my shield
Robert leads me into thought
Into the dimming blue

Nowhere in this world
For this old jack-tar
Three cheers for Robert
To the cinnabar

One ponders layers and layers and layers.

This is from the album’s first single, Robert Onion. Then there’s St. Francis Dam Disaster, a chilling story of destruction made more chilling told from the dispassionate perspective of the flowing water.
    Guitarist Joey Santiago, a buddy of Black’s from the Pixies days, joins the Catholics on three songs: Blast Off, Robert Onion, and the title. Generous helpings of pedal steel, acoustic guitar & piano, and banjo make the album sound rather alt country to start, but what we have here is sculpted fire with enough beat, understated power, and musical dynamics to pull you in and make you consider it rock. And it wouldn’t be Frank Black if it didn’t also make you laugh and scratch your head at times, as it does.
    Dog In The Sand is Black’s widest ranging album. It includes a ’50s style ballad, Stupid Me; the Pixies-unplugged Robert Onion; the Flying Burrito Brothers-like Bullet, the Neil Young or Tom Petty-like ballad I’ll Be Blue, and the twisted southern rock Hermaphroditos. The emotional spectrum is broader than previous efforts as well. At the same time this album may be his most fully realized.
    The track listing is Blast Off, I’ve Seen Your Picture, St. Francis Dam Disaster, Robert Onion, Stupid Me, Bullet, The Swimmer, Hermaphroditos Is My Name, I’ll Be Blue, Llano Del Rio, If It Takes All Night, and Dog In The Sand. It hits stores at the end of January worldwide, but you can pre-order it now from all the popular online retail outlets. Highly recommended. | discography | | sample | | CD | | top of page |

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