Frank Black and the Catholics

Frank Black and the Catholics Show Me Your Tears spinART www.spinartrecords.com/bands_frankblack.html

The standard spiel about Frank Black could apply to any other seminal rock ‘n’ roll figure (Bob Mould, say) who presaged the alternative-rock insurrection but neither profited heavily from it nor died conveniently young. The line goes like this: “He hasn’t done anything great since he was in [insert band name here].”

This cuts deeply in Black’s case because, more than anyone else, the Pixies — his band back when he was Black Francis — defined the edgy dynamics that Nirvana used to sell millions of records, inject electricity back into radio, destroy metal temporarily, etc. And after the Pixies disintegrated, Black formed a new band, the Catholics, with whom he’s cranked out rock ‘n’ roll that has been frequently good, sometimes better than good, but never quite so scintillating as the earlier flashes of fire.

Show Me Your Tears is Black’s latest. Like most of his work in the last few years, it sounds as if he’s decided to reduce not merely his own expectations but those of everyone else as well. It’s just 13 songs ranging from the dark, stalking rockabilly of “Nadine” to the airy brooding roots-rock of “Manitoba,” with influences like Tex-Mex and spaghetti Westerns in between.

None of the songs qualifies as a genuine waste of time, but Black’s voice — mostly low grit with the occasional leavening of melody or falsetto — lacks tension. The elastic snap that would propel the music past its own fleeting pleasures simply doesn’t happen. Show Me Your Tears, the title says, but Black gives out mere traces of tears, blood and sweat: the bodily fluids of art.