The Breeders - Title TK
(4AD)
My love affair with The Breeders started one night in my adolescence when the video for "Safari" appeared on 120 Minutes. I was instantly hooked by Kim Deal's wonderfully worn voice and the quirky hooks she
threw my way. Soon afterward I bought Last Splash and listened to in incessantly for two years straight. Unlike most people, The Breeders got me into the Pixies and opened my ears to a new musical world filled with new wave that rocked (not the other way around)!!
Flash forward eight years: Yay Yay Title Tk!! The Deal sisters are back with an entirely new backing band and a hot new album recorded by the best in the business, Steve Albini. Everyone knows the story by now, five hundred false starts and broken promises finally result in The Breeders first release since Last Splash.
Title TK is very good. Most of the songs are the sort of wistful slack rock that doesn't seem to have much to say, but manages to take hold of the listener anyway. Gone is the unabashed poppiness of "Cannonball" and solid rawk of "I Just Wanna Get Along," but in it's place is a sort of stripped down version of The Breeders. Kim's voice is rougher, the guitars pack less bite, and the bass lines are not nearly as inventive but it still sounds pretty great. The high point of the album for me appears on the last track, "Huffer," when flashes of Breeders past come alive as the tempo speeds up and the guitars start to rock out.
All in all, Title TK is a bit of a let down only in that I had wished for so much more. "Huffer" hints at what this band can do if they wanted to, but I guess rocking isn't really on The Breeders agenda anymore. Somehow every time this album ends, however, I find myself listening to it again.
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