Frank Black Continues Alternative Approach

February 2 -- In "St. Francis Dam Disaster," off the new album Dog in the Sand, Frank Black eulogizes a tragic dam break in 1928 that poured megatons of water through 53 miles of inhabited Southern California, killing 500.

But this is no elegy for the citizenry. When Black sings, "Because that water seeks her own," his mordant relish gives the listener the distinct impression he's on the water's side.

"Absolutely," Black says. "At least from that [song's] character's perspective. You know, it wasn't her fault. You dam up or drain out a lot of water — you start messing with those kinds of elements, and stuff happens."

They used to call this alternative perspective "alternative rock," andwhen they did, Black — a k a Black Francis, a k a Charles Michael Kitteridge Thompson IV — was its unlikely poster boy: a rotund, balding screamer who helped codify the genre in all its obliqueness and ferocity. His band, the Pixies, got out before the real money was made, and Black has gamely carved out his survival on the fringe. He does not have many contemporaries. "You mean people in a similar vein?" he asks. "Probably obscure people. I don't know. Clawhammer?"

So it goes when a rock album is neither filled with rap-metal revenge fantasies nor middlebrow rock. They used to call it cult heroism, but on Dog in the Sand, Black and his band, the Catholics, predate even that, adopting a retro, two-track recording policy, with no edits or overdubs.

"It's not tedious," he says. "It's fun. It's economical. It's macho. It's representative of the band."

The classic rock heritage is made clear in straightforward liner notes that describe Black's current listening habits as "[the Rolling Stones'] Exile on Main Street in the morning and [Bob Dylan's] Blonde on Blonde in the afternoon."

Dog has a lived-in groove inherited from the Stones and enhanced by the addition of keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman (Captain Beefheart, Pere Ubu, PJ Harvey). The keys mean "everyone plays less. We definitely wanted it to be more Stones-y. That song "Gimme Shelter" … when you hear the opening piano chords come in, a few bars into the song, it's kind of a dramatic rock moment. It's good to have some of that."