release date: Sep. 23, 1991
format: cd / vinyl (2021, 30th Anniversary Ed. - ltd. green vinyl)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,15]
producer: Gil Norton
label: 4AD Records - nationality: USA
Tracklist: 1. "Trompe le monde" - 2. "Planet of Sound" (4 / 5) - 3. "Alec Eiffel" - 4. "The Sad Punk" - 5. "Head On" - 6. "U-Mass" (4 / 5) - 7. "Palace of the Brine" - 8. "Letter to Memphis" - 9. "Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons" (4 / 5) - 10. "Space (I Believe In)" - 11. "Subbacultcha" - 12. "Distance Equals Rate Times Time" - 13. "Lovely Day" - 14. "Motorway to Roswell" - 15. "The Navajo Know"
4th and final epic studio album by Pixies is a strong return to a noise rock, garage rock universe. All tracks are written by Black Francis except for one song (like was the case on the previous album). Here they include a cover version, "Head On" by British noise-rockers Jesus and Mary Chain. When I first heard Trompe le monde, I was really disappointed. It wasn't the comeback release to the sound and glory of Doolittle (1989) that I had hoped for, and I didn't like the distorted singing / screaming by Francis. I thought it was nothing but noise. After the initial rejection I returned to it, and it took me some time but eventually it slowly opened, and I found the beauty in the ugly, you could say, almost like with the rest of their albums. It has some strong narrative beautiful songs like "Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons" and "Motorway to Roswell" as well as fierce-full outburst like "Planet of Sound", "U-Mass", and "Lovely Day". I think it's simply the band's second best album, although the unpolished Surfer Rosa (1988) is another album hard to get past.
The band spent the last months of '91 and most of '92 by touring, and tensions within the band led to an initial hiatus by the end of the year. The band members put energy in individual projects - of which the (Kim and sister Kelley) Deal-led band, The Breeders was most interesting. In early '93, in a BBC interview, Black Francis stated that Pixies were no more, and this was later informed to the other members, who apparently knew nothing of the split. Black Francis released his solo debut album Frank Black (now as Frank Black) in March, and lead guitarist Joey Santiago formed The Martinis and The Breeders released its fine debut album Last Splash in August that year. From hereon, it seemed very unlikely that Pixies should ever re-unite.
EDIT 2021:
Original issues of the album has sky-rocketed in prices, and yes, I happened to own that issue but as I resold that still of '91, I must settle with less. The cd-issue just isn't the same, and especially the cover art is so unique, you need to see it in another scale, so as of 2021, I have now purchased the album in a '30th Anniversary Edition', which luckily still sounds great and definitely much better than the various remaster editions, which should be avoided.
[ allmusic.com, Blender, Q Magazine, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]
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| 2021 vinyl reissue |
