Pixies ‘The Night The Zombies Came’ Album Review

For nearly four decades Boston, Massachusetts alternative rock outfit Pixies have cranked out their own dirty, distorted alt-rock. Influencing many modern era bands, while finding a place in the hearts of many 90s students, grunge, alternative rock, and punk fans, we’re here in 2024 with the band returning and still sounding as important as ever.

The line-up might have changed over time but, as we hear on the follow-up to 2022’s ‘Doggerel’, and the tenth album of their career, Pixies in 2024 are exactly how we would want a band to sound heading into their fourth decade. Confident in their music, Pixies fans will find ‘The Night The Zombies’ to drip with that familiar dark, dirty aura. Throughout the album, the tempo ebbs and flows through more laid back numbers like opener “Primrose” to the more grittier rock n’roll of tracks like “Johnny Good Man”.

The end result is an album that grinds through it’s different moods but never sounds like anything other than a Pixies record. Cutting through the distorted guitars, the bass of newest member Emma Richardson even slots right into the mix while the familiarity in the vocals of Black Francis and the guitar tones of Joey Santiago just give you a comforting feeling as they wash over you.

Occasionally Francis and Co veer off piste to keep things fresh as they do on the quirky “Chicken” but, in all honesty, the band and the album are at their best when they are cranking out dirty hooks, and even dirtier melodies. It’s a sound and a blueprint that all Pixies fans will recognise as it’s the reason they fell in love with the band in the first place and the one that shows, even nearly forty years later, the alternative scene needs Pixies just as much as it did in their heyday.