Finding myself hard pressed to say anything about Doggerel apart from that it's great, I rummaged around online to see what proper reviewers had said, which was probably a mistake. Everybody seemed to think it was great whilst wrestling with a sneaking suspicion that they probably shouldn't because the Pixies formed way back in 1756 and this one sounds like the others, which is saaaaaaad, and hey, you should really check out the new albums by Bad Sounds, Spring King, and Vant*, my man.
One such review reads:
Opener Nomatterday is a multi-sectioned track that sounds like post-punk by a band who arrived late to that genre's pier. However, it does land on some compelling passages and is a promising introduction to an album that regularly runs out of steam. It's difficult to touch on these and future criticisms without first pointing out the unfortunate and potentially triggering ageism inherent in this type of cultural criticism. A group, even one as consistently professional as Pixies, will always be held up to younger versions of themselves, to purple patches in their career that bloomed from the high-performance levels occasioned by the advantaged position of young adults in the entertainment industry.
Ugh. I guess I'm not the only one who struggled for something to say, but it's all bollocks. Stick the record on the turntable and close inspection, or not even particularly close inspection will reveal that it rocks, and it rocks at least as much as the Pixies have ever rocked.
It's that simple.
It sounds a little like the other records in that it sounds like the Pixies, and I realise it's boooooooring how they didn't add bagpipes or fill the first side with twenty minutes of musique concrete recorded at the bingo in an old folks home, conservative hacks that they are; but it doesn't matter because it rocks. True, there's no Monkey Gone to Heaven here, which is because that's on one of the other albums, and it has plenty of great tracks which are only on this album, and which rock. I really can't overemphasise that last point.
Sure, you get what you usually get with the Pixies - folksy tales of the weird and wonderful with arresting imagery, a faint hint of the Latin, big screen sunsets, screwy time signatures and nothing quite so predictable as to feel like it's going through the motions. If you wanted something else you probably should have bought a different record. If you bought this one, stick it on, crank it up, and rock the fuck out. It's not difficult to understand.
*: I use these three to invoke the general idea of new bands with fucking stupid names championed by beardy arseholes on the grounds of their being new, although I'm well aware they're probably considered old school by now, each churning out comeback albums, and I'm so out of touch that it's embarrassing; not that I care.
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