Pixies - Bossanova (1990), 7/10

While I do truly love the style and sentiments in Doolittle and Surfer Rosa, the latter especially, and they even have much stronger individual songs, Bossanova is a more consistently enjoyable project from start to finish. There is a clear intention and a much more focused consistency in comparison to their prior work. There are still some hard hitters among the mostly level pack, yet the experience just doesn't quite reach the massive energy of their debut. A peak example of its power being "Rock Music", a shining example of how Frank Black can reach through your speakers and grab you by the neck, something I can never seem to get enough of. Bossanova hosts lots of hard rocking songs perfectly tied together and paced just right, with the most fitting graceful "Havalina" closing out the list. Apart from perhaps "Ana" or "Blown Away" there really isn't a song I would label as weak in comparison to the rest. This is an album I can leave on in the background and still bob my head to. I do mean that as an underhanded compliment, sometimes it can lose your interest because it is indeed too consistent in its themes and achieved sound. Still, songs like "All Over the World" or "Blown Away" do grab your attention and make things worth the wait. The songs are short enough to progress very quickly almost as if they wanted to establish a motif and quickly retreat into the next, the longest fittingly being the most interesting one explored. Maybe the band caught onto this fact and decided to extend the riff as long as they could stand it. Certainly not host to Pixies best songs, as that is quite a high bar to reach, but still among their best albums from a standpoint of invariably high quality rock music.