Pixies - Wave of Mutilation: The Best of Pixies (CD)

All Music Guide

4AD tries, tries again with Wave of Mutilation: The Best of the Pixies, the second Pixies bestof they've released since the band broke up in 1992 and the companion piece to the longawaited, simultaneously released DVD =Pixies. Lessons have been learned from 1997's halfbaked Death to the Pixies: this compilation's track listing is in more or less chronological order (although Surfer Rosa's "Where Is My Mind?" pops up in the middle of the album, after a string of Doolittle tracks), which helps the flow of the collection; since each of the Pixies' albums had its own distinctive feel, the cut'n'paste approach of the previous bestof didn't always serve the songs it collected. More importantly, Wave of Mutilation boasts 23 songs, as opposed to the 17 on the bestof disc on Death to the Pixies. While, theoretically, 23 tracks should be enough to capture most, if not all, of the band's definitive moments, that's not quite the case here. The collection does a good job of compiling the band's sin...gles, two excellent Bsides ("Into the White" and "Winterlong"), and many of their key album tracks, but those are so numerous that, for the second time, more than a few of the Pixies' best songs have been left off of their bestof album. The picks from Doolittle are more or less perfect (although including the wonderfully creepy "I Bleed" certainly would've earned some extra credit), but several nearessential songs from each of their other albums are missing in action. Surfer Rosa's "Cactus" and "River Euphrates are at the top of that list. Come On Pilgrim's "I've Been Tired" and "Levitate Me" are missed nearly as much, even though including them would bring the total songs from the eightsong minialbum that appear on Wave of Mutilation to five (making a case for Come On Pilgrim to be considered the Pixies' most consistent if not best work). Read more Less