Pixies

This album, then, features the nine remaining and hitherto legally-unavailable songs (a tenth, "Watch What You're Doin'" remains unheard and safely tucked away under producer Gary Smith's proverbial mattress) and is notable not only for offering less abrasive renditions of songs which later wound up (literally so, given Steve Albini's edgier production touch ) on Surfer Rosa but also a studio cover version of "In Heaven" (originally from the film Eraserhead), an earlier, milder working of Doolittle's prime pop moment "Here Comes Your Man" and the previously unreleased gem "Rock a My Soul". It's often the case that early demos provide a snapshot of a band's creative genesis but here are the Pixies--Black Francis's jeepers-creepers vocals and the trademark surf-gone-trash-horror narratives of theophobia, familial perversion and grisly personal injury--in fully grown glory. They got it right from the start. --Kevin Maidment