Last years’ double dose of Black was in comparison to this a rather sprawling and patchy affair. Gone are the dust balls, mothballs and mutant side-show freaks of ‘Black Letter Days’ and the blurry, agitated glam of ‘Devils Workshop’ and in their place a bakers dozen or so tracks of effortlessly consistent – if sardonic –alt-country rock. It wasn’t that the last two were in any way sub-standard, it’s just that they were a little less economical. Not so much an issue of quality control as anger management. ‘Devil’s Workshop’ was a particularly volatile and unanchored collection. It had its moments (‘His Kingly Cave’, San Antonio’, ‘Whisky In Your Shoes’) but it all too often bowed under the weight of just too many ideas and too little time (and even fewer resources) to flesh them out. Inspired jams, but little more. But this is where ‘Show Me Your Tears’ differs from its well-respected predecessors. It’s still recorded live to two-track but lyrically and conceptually, it’s an entirely different banana.
Opening with the mean, leathery blues drill of up coming single ‘Nadine’ Black slithers and growls straight back into character. It’s a blend of feisty and relentless horniness and all consuming resentment: the two things your average misogynist does best – bleeding knuckles and bleeding guitar strings. Some might criticise the immodest posturing of the guitar breaks, but that’s the blues for christs’akes.
‘My Favourite Kiss’ and ‘This Old Heartache’ takes their cues from the sultry, velvet murmur of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and the Tindersticks, but it’s the delicately stated irony that wins us over: the record’s ‘fabled kiss’. They’re pithy, abrupt and very genuinely amusing. As is the lightly tripping ‘Goodbye Lorraine’ – a staggeringly proximate rendition of just about every country song you could think of. ‘Manitoba’ on the otherhand demonstrates that Black can assimilate all these influences, spit up as much irony as he can call to his mouth and still pen something of unique and impressive character. It’s still a little piece of country – but it has that other indispensable quality also – that something a little Black.
Whether or not we can rely on the ‘Pixies Reunion’ rumours that are currently circulating to turn out something positive and worthwhile (although Pixie-esque tracks like ‘Massif Centrale’ suggest it’s entirely possible) we can at least enjoy this little lap-steel of luxury without recourse to the past.
A worthy finish. A far worthier start.