Dog In The Sand

Pleasant, if not very gripping... [March 2001, p.70]

His third record with the Catholics, "Dog In The Sand," furthers the ex-Pixies frontman's recent explorations into bare-bones rock'n'roll.

Dog In The Sand' is unquestionably Frank Black's finest solo album.

Frank Black has dug in deep for this one, and come up with an album that captures the essence of his roots while expanding the realm he's been entrenched in over the last few years.

It's the sound of a man finding a new place for himself, liking it, and reveling in it.

By and large, the disc is made up of ambitious but misguided attempts to elevate mundane rock 'n' roll to some kind of higher art form.

Dog is Black's safest record in years.... As such, however, the album is a bore. Rollicking American rock and pedal-stell ballads don't suit Black, and the resulting arrangements are both unsurprising and uninspired. [#48, p.78]

There is an inflammatory urgency here that reminds you of why Kurt Cobain considered Black an almost saintly figure. [Feb. 2001, p.88]

It's unfortunate that Frank Black And The Catholics' fourth release falls so close to that of his former band the Pixies' B-sides compilation. Next to the twisted urgency of Black's heyday, his current shortcomings are even more stark.

Dog has a strong, old-school rock and roll feel to it.

By this time, though, even Frank may be chafing at the limitations of their bar-band sound, staunch as he is in refusing to do overdubs or even edits in the recording process. Fortunately, there are just enough tweaks to that process this time out to enliven the resulting album, making it his most diverse and listenable since Teenager of the Year.

This is an arresting album that doesn't let go of your attention.

This is Black's strongest set of songs since 1994's second solo selection, Teenager Of The Year, largely because the trademark wit and weirdness is back.

Having traded in affected spooky vocals and idiosyncratic song structures for straight-ahead rock, however, Black seems to suffer a crisis of confidence on "Dog in the Sand."

He sounds fierce on his new album, and that's a welcome change.