Breeders

The Breeders were a supergroup formed by Kim Deal (bassist of the Pixies, but here on guitar), Tanya Donelly (guitarist of the Throwing Muses), Josephine Wiggs (bassist of Perfect Disaster), and Shannon Doughton (i.e., drummer Britt Walford of Slint).

Deal was the driving force behind the project, and it is therefore unsurprising that the sound of Pod (4AD, 1990) is that of the best Pixies material. The band rarely reveals grit or enthusiasm: its pace is neutral and glacial, sometimes slightly “tired,” at times approaching in Glorious Neil Young–like martial laments, and at other times nervous, even imitating in Doe the spasmodic strumming of the Feelies.

Deal’s compositions approach typically feminine themes such as menstruation (Iris) and sexual intercourse (Only In 3's) with a hallucinatory tension. Sexuality is, in fact, the unifying theme of the album. Yet both lyrics and music possess a subtle metaphorical quality that dispels any suspicion of hyper-realism. Between the girl-group vocal harmonies of Fortunately Gone and the acoustic blues of Metal Man, the Breeders articulate a language of despair, letting every sound of their cries echo with cruel self-indulgence.

If the dramatic tone culminates in Happiness Is A Warm Gun, which screams out a furious nursery rhyme, and in the nightmarish vortex of Limehouse, the masterpiece is perhaps Hellbound, where—under the guise of a suddenly lively garage-rock—the song becomes a desperate meditation on abortion (the fetus survives).

Theirs is a strange kind of psychedelic power-pop, entirely aimed at mercilessly exposing the most painful states of the human psyche. At times (Opened) the intertwining guitars create an atmosphere of suspense and decay worthy of film noir; at others (When I Was A Painter) Carrie Bradley’s violin squeaks produce a sense of disorientation akin to a psychoanalytic session.

Far from being amateurish or rough, their songs are always highly communicative, thanks to a technique that is as refined as it is unpredictable. These songs echo sounds already heard on Pixies records, but in this context they feel more spontaneous and authentic.

The album stands alongside the Pixies’ later work and, beyond confirming Deal’s importance in that band, also propels her to the forefront of alternative rock “authors.” Her sensual vocal register and seasoned narrative inflections make her an unmistakable voice of 1990s existential crisis.

The group later added another woman, guitarist and singer Kelley Deal (Kim Deal’s twin sister), and recorded the EP Safari (4AD, 1993). The songs remain devoted to sexual themes: Safari, about orgasm, another of their morbidly introspective masterpieces; Do You Love Me, so slow and subdued it seems whispered in a dream; Don't Call Home, with a more surreal arrangement; and So Sad About Us, which borrows the “jingle jangle” of Feel A Whole Lot Better (Byrds). This tortured way of analyzing female sexuality—while singing in such an inviting, anything-but-“feminist” tone and playing with such humble yet intelligent musicianship—creates a striking contrast.

The Breeders lost Donelly (who went on to Belly) and thus became effectively a “sisters-only” project. The music benefited from this, so much so that their second album, Last Splash (4AD, 1993), remains their masterpiece. First of all, the Breeders simplify things a bit, increasing catchiness, raising the volume level, adopting more prominent rhythms, and allowing the arrangements to breathe. In Divine Hammer it almost sounds like the light boogie of the Go-Go’s, and in Saints like the Jefferson Starship in a “Southern” version; Drivin' On is a gentle country & western ballad. But the real novelty of the album lies in the gritty rock and roll underpinning almost all the tracks, and in the way this solid structure is constantly undermined by the arrangements. Cannonball could be an “industrial” version of the Bangles, with its bland chorus hidden under a storm of catastrophic riffs and filtered screams. The driving force of New Year is weakened by countless cacophonous digressions. Every song is immediately recognizable as a Breeders song thanks to small but abrasive rhythmic and guitar detours: a distortion, a tempo change, a truncated riff, a psychotic flourish. Each track is traversed by a thread of acute neurosis that turns harmonies into stylistic puzzles. In the end, this was perhaps the most important lesson of the Pixies. This might be the best album the Pixies never made.

The Breeders’ strength remains harmonic unpredictability: the spoken introduction of No Aloha is accompanied by languid Hawaiian chords and an anxious strumming; Mad Lucas is played as if a dying man were performing a blues in an empty cocktail lounge. If the instrumental Roi is buried under bursts of nuclear radiation, its frenzied counterpart Flipside breathes the crisp air of the beach, down a revisionist path reminiscent of the Fleshtones.

Kim Deal, raised in Dayton, Ohio, and introduced to music through countless nights of blues singing with her sister in local bars, found in the Breeders a vehicle for expressing her immense talent as a post-feminist philosopher, an acute observer of her era’s existential malaise, and a cool storyteller of an ongoing social revolution.

Kim Deal later continued her mission with the Amps.

Like most reunion albums, Title Tk (Elektra, 2002) was mainly a way to celebrate the musicians' own good old memories, which, in this case, means Kim Deal's good old memories. Deal is a mature songwriter whose muse has to coexist with her neuroses. The result is certainly not party music. Hardly perversely catchy or grotesquely bouncy or intensely light, these are songs meant to say something. Which is what Deal was never good at.

Like most albums by rock veterans, Mountain Battles (4AD, 2008) exhibits a classy elegance at what the band does best but also a chronic inability to reform itself. It sounds like a better version of Title TK, not a step forward (or backwards). Walk It Off and It's The Love are the only songs that hark back to their past glory, while the ballads Night of Joy and We're Gonna Rise and the tribal trance of Istanbul may cover a lot of ground but can't quite compete with the bands that do those things for a living. The album includes some truly terrible ideas (including a cover in Spanish), but it's mostly a harmless retreat into classic rock music.

The Breeders returned with All Nerve (2018) and Deal debuted solo with Nobody Loves You More (2024).