The Complete Recordings

A remastered collection of Frank Black and the Catholics' entire discography, The Complete Recordings boasts more than a little of the Pixies frontman's fondness for quirk. The songs from the Catholics' six albums are arranged in alphabetical order here, recalling his other band's penchant for playing their songs from A to Z in concert. Nevertheless, this reshuffled order just might remind fans how consistent Black's output was during this time, and how well the band's stripped-down approach suited his songwriting, especially after the more elaborate sound he pursued immediately after Pixies disbanded. Indeed, the best songs here — "Billy Radcliffe," "I Switched You," "St. Francis Dam Disaster," "Robert Onion," "Hermaphroditos," "His Kingly Cave," "The Black Rider," "California Bound," "Massif Central," and "Jane, the Queen of Love" chief among them — serve as a reminder that Black developed into a more mature, but still playful, writer during the Catholics years. Along with the generous amount of previously unreleased songs, including the entirety of the band's scrapped 2000 album Sunday Sunny Mill Valley Groove Day, of special note for fans is the set's seventh disc, True Blue. A set of "technical demos" for one of the band's finest albums, 2002's Black Letter Days, its intimate versions of songs like "Chip Away Boy" and "Valentine and Garuda" are highlights. Exhaustive but not exhausting, The Complete Recordings is a veritable jukebox full of fun for Frank Black obsessives.