Frank Black seemed almost an apologist for Pixies’ latest run of material when earlier this year he claimed that “At the end of the day we’re making fuckin’ rock’n’roll records. We’re not trying to save the world!” ‘EP-1’ dropped quietly in September of last year, a disappointingly drab release – with a few sprinklings of that magic Pixie dust, granted – that did little to whet the appetite for whatever this new manifestation of the band may put forth. Ex-Fall veteran Simon Archer once more assumes bass duties, taking over from still-gone-not-forgotten Kim Deal on these four tracks borne from the same sessions as ‘EP-1’.

Reassessing ‘EP-1’ in in the context of this latest release, two loose veins of song style seem apparent; like its predecessor, ‘EP-2’ contains a couple of pastiche rockers and a couple of more experimental pop songs. The meat’n’potatoes collar grab of the former packs a punch despite the by-numbers approach, but the latter – even if somewhat anaemic –  are infinitely more interesting, pointing most overtly to a new direction for the band.

Blue Eyed Hexe rears its head first, a distant cousin of the U-Mass riff mangled into a different howling beast. From this startling clarion call it all goes oddly awry, with David Lovering ushering in a Free-style 70’s rocker with the crash of a cymbal, the clank of a cowbell and a quietly distinctive take on a four-to-the-floor beat. Esoteric imagery peppers the tale of a devil woman, with Black’s guttural register just shy of Bon Scott in a blustering peacock strut.

Santiago’s spacey Moog guitar on Magdalena echoes the airiness of ‘Bossanova’s lighter moments, but it is Greens and Blues that rouses the most interest here. It’s straight-up blissful pop, closer to ‘EP 1’s Andro Queen in its shimmering sensibilities, with Santiago’s guitar emitting light as it ripples outwards from Black’s pronunciations. Snakes is more of a ‘chorus’ song, with a riff that coils back on itself as Lovering’s backbeat provides the solid unadorned thump typical of this release. It’s hard to know if he’s simply uninspired or if has his Neil Peart-isms have merely subsided with age. We hope not.

For better or worse, this feels even less of a Pixies offering than ‘EP-1’, and maybe that’s the cumulative point of these EPs. Deal has been replaced and Lovering here seems to have taken a back stool, his touch tempered almost beyond recognition. The way things are going, by the end of the year there may be the makings of one killer EP to be culled from all this…and a fully metamorphosed incarnation of The Frank Black Experience.