It can’t be too many songs which feature a duet between two actual aw-shucks-it-didn’t-work-out divorcing adults. She said, “I used to walk in a big black cloud, you took my hand and you let me out”. He said: “I list of demons bared on my chest, you picked me up and you laid them to rest”. On to the chorus and they’re sharing the mic: “it’s a pain to be sure we were aiming so high, it’s so strange to be saying goodbye” … but this is Frank Black (and, in “Saying Goodbye” his ex). It follows a cover about a young shrimp also bidding adieu, this time to his parents as s/he leaves for Louisiana, and is a couple of tracks before a sentimental love song to his new wife, Violet. Add a few lines about puking up hearts with your liquor and it’s business as usual on the lyric front.

Musically it’s a different story: the growling vocals and turn of the 90’s pacesetting Pixies dynamics have been replaced by languid country-soul. Honeycomb was recorded in Nashville just before the Pixies kicked off their reunion tour (which, Black’s publicity is keen to remind us, was Spin Magazine’s Comeback of the Year), and it feels like someone reaching for a Hamlet cigar while the press and reunion tensions were taking their toll. With a cobbled together band made up with drivers of the Muscle Shoals, American Studios and Stax Records legacy (most notably, Steve “In the Midnight Hour” Cropper), the album floats along nicely, but doesn’t get the pulses racing.

While “I Burn Today” is so catchy you’ll be humming it midway through the first verse, the even consistency of Honeycomb lets it down. At around the time the Pixies were thrashing out singing duties for their first EP, Elvis Costello went to the States and recorded his 11th album, King of America. It was also backed by legendary country/bluesy musicians, but its diversity made for a brilliant record. A little more essence of the Pixies might have helped lift Honeycomb from a pleasant diversion to something we’ll still be reaching for a year from now.

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