The Quietus

When history comes to look back at the musical fashions and movements of the early 21st century, the developments that are likely to stand out more than any other are the reunion and the comeback. And at the forefront of this movement has been Kim Deal, initially with the 2004 surprise reunion of Pixies and then with the long gaps between her successive releases with The Breeders.

For The Breeders’ fifth album, Deal – the band’s sole constant member – has extended the 2012 LSXX reunion of The Last Splash line-up and returned to the studio with sister Kelley, bassist Josephine Wiggs and drummer Jim Macpherson. Given the justifiable high regard that the band’s second album is held in, not to mention the countless disciples and copyists it spawned, it’s no exaggeration to say that expectations are riding high.

Perhaps it’s unfair to place so much weight on the album’s shoulders, but even taken on its own terms, All Nerve fails to meet those expectations. Which is shame, as all the component parts of The Breeders at their best are present and correct: Kim Deal’s cooing vocals, simultaneously childlike and sinister; guitars that mesh and then split into fuzzed rhythms and rudimentary lead breaks; a bass guitar that sounds as if its strings were changed five minutes before the session started; drums that skitter and erupt.

And yet it never really takes off. It seems that ‘Wait In The Car’ – the lead single released at the end of last year, and the kind of quirky guitar pop The Breeders can do so well – was a red herring. As evidenced throughout much of All Nerve, the pace of the material is far slower, the melodies less prevalent, the ideas underwhelming.

Equally deceptive is the frontloading of the album. ‘Nervous Mary’ is all sparse, plucked single notes and half chords that give way to chugging explosions and vocal harmonies. Likewise the title track and the genuinely brilliant ‘MetaGoth’ Stripped to the bone and not so much sung as intoned by Josephine Wiggs, this is one of the creepiest yet compelling compositions The Breeders have ever put their name to.

From there on in, the album goes through a variety of fits and starts before descending into anticlimax. ‘Skinhead #2’ and ‘Blues At The Acropolis’ are inconclusive filler, which on an album that lasts a little over 30 minutes, just isn’t good enough. And unlike their take on The Beatles’ ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’, Amon Duul II’s ‘Archangels Thunderbird’ offers nothing new.

Not to worry. Perhaps it’ll all come together in 2026 with their next release. Here’s hoping.

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Drowned In Sound 90

With tumbling riffs and clattering percussion fueling the sheer cheek of it all, and after a decade of absence, fans were greeted with the mischievous order, “wait in the car.” Seriously? After ten long years, wait in the car? But then in all likelihood most had acquiesced with that first glorious bellow of, “Good Morning!”, if they knew what was good for them anyway. And besides, Kim Deal’s “got business” don’t you know: to be a breeders fan is not to be needy.

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Duly, the follow-up to that florid lead single is perhaps where the band really get down to it. All Nerve taps into a vulnerability that made a song like ‘Off You’ so delicately exquisite it could damn near bring you to tears. It’s really quite bracing to hear Deal sing such an utterly direct and unguarded a line as, “I wanna see you / especially you / you don't know how much I miss you.” And equally thrilling to witness her rip it all up: “I won't stop / I’ll run you down.” From the oblique lyricism of Pod through Mountain Battles’ foreign language capers, she’s always had a crafty knack of pulling the rug when you least expect it. As ever, the specificity of the song's meaning remains elusive but the effect is anything but vague, and anyhow, “strategies are for punks."

Musically, the band is entirely in tune with the sentiment, arching then yielding as the lyrics bristle before softening. And lest we forget, this is the first record from the Last Splash line-up since that defining record landed in 1993. Returning members Josephine Wiggs and Jim MacPherson stand as one of the most distinctive rhythm sections of modern times and their presence makes for a band in rude health. MacPherson demonstrates he’s is a drummer of thought and thew, whether he’s powering-up the crescendo of 'Howl at the Summit', or driving the anxious rhythms of 'MetaGoth.' Equally, Josephine Wiggs is on commanding form, markedly on two tracks for which she bears writing credits (an ominous rumble on 'MetaGoth' and the snaking bass of 'Skinhead #1'), not to mention everywhere in between.

However, it’s perhaps on the band's blazing cover of Amon Düül II’s ‘Archangel Thunderbirds’ that the pair is most essential. They tether the track with a mouth-wateringly powerful groove while the Deal sisters let rip on one of psych rock's real gems. One guitar is circular and hypnotic, the other zig-zagging and spiky, meanwhile, Deal’s vocal levitates wildly over the whole heady mixture. Incidentally, it contains some of the trippiest lyrics ever committed to wax, "In shock corridors / people are standing / with their eyes in their hands / but they don't understand,” which rather handily sums up the bewildering sensation their version evokes. Following it up with the sublime ‘Dawn: Making An Effort’ is a stroke of track-listing genius. It cascades and glimmers around angelic vocals, soothing a come down gleaned from the hedonism before it and urging you to rest those heavy eyelids (or just pop them on the floor if you’re still reeling from the psychosis).

Rest is maybe something that folk imagine The Breeders have been enjoying since their 2009 Fate To Fatal EP. But that assumption would be to dismiss not only the crafting of All Nerve but also subsequent projects. Just last year Kelley Deal put out the brilliant R. Ring record, Ignite The Rest, and Kim Deal released a superb 7-inch series between 2013-2014, one of which reappears on this record. ‘Walking With the Killer' stands as one of her very finest; as such, anyone who thinks its inclusion is a bit of a cop-out can get in their box. If there is a minor criticism of the re-recorded version, it’s that it loses a little of muted, creepy character of the original, but nevertheless, it still prickles with the duplicity of the "dark star” narrator.

It turns the air eerie and yet there’s a sweetness to it, which is indicative of The Breeder's deftness at conjuring complex moods. Equally, despite Kim-anolog-head-Deal making a digital sacrifice for All Nerve, it hasn’t quelled the characteristic patina of her work. Idiosyncrasies like the lingering effects that pervade the stomp and float of ‘Spacewoman,’ tapping through the guitar reverb like a faint, broken transmission, remain intact.

All of which doesn’t even begin to touch on the mysterious ‘Nervous Mary,’ the wonderful skittishness of ‘Skinhead #1’ or the strange visions of ‘Blues at the Apocalypse’ populated by junkies and heroes bleeding out. Or even how All Nerve stands in relation to their other work, but then what would be the point of that? All Breeders' records sound entirely distinct and yet so wholly like themselves. Neil Gaiman recently [penned] (http://thebreedersmusic.com/bio/) a lovely essay on the band that, amongst other things, seemed to riff on the famed John Peel quote about The Fall ('they are always different; they are always the same'), further proposing that "music slices you in time." And it's true, the really good stuff does. As its title suggests All Nerve is never a passive listen, it shifts you, touches a nerve, and leaves a timely mark. Ah, The Breeders, an irreverent comfort; a band for the ages.

The Guardian 80

Kim Deal’s cult band – having returned to the lineup of their classic Last Splash – deliver an album that blends ancient monuments and crushed beetles into a spectral brew

A sense of “What if?” hangs over the career of Kim Deal. It seems a strange thing to say about someone who’s been a member of not one but two seminal rock bands, an alt-rock figure so beloved that journalists unironically open profiles of her with the words “It is not possible to overstate the importance of Kim Deal” and to whom everyone from Kurt Cobain to Courtney Barnett has paid homage.

Nevertheless – what if Pixies frontman Black Francis had acceded to Cobain’s public suggestion that he “allow” Deal to write more songs for the band? The Pixies’ later albums would have been bolstered by the material that Deal used in her side project the Breeders, the band’s internal strife might have pacified, and arguably the most influential rock band of the 80s might have ended up as commercially successful as they were critically acclaimed.

Related: The Breeders on kicking drugs, Kurt Cobain and life after Pixies

The album isn’t intense in the 'raging guitar noise' sense of the phrase. Songs frequently unravel into stillness before gathering themselves up again

Pitchfork 71

The Breeders’ new album features their iconic *Last Splash* lineup. It is smoothly confident with many moments of bliss, even as the lyrics evoke isolation, frustration, and scuzz.

Tiny Mix Tapes 70

The Breeders
All Nerve

[4AD; 2018]

Rating: 3.5/5

Tiny Mix Tapes 70

The Breeders
All Nerve

[4AD; 2018]

Rating: 3.5/5