For his ninth solo release, Frank Black wears his tears on his sleeve. The first recording after Black and his wife of sixteen years divorced, Show Me Your Tears is strikingly personal by his standards, featuring thirteen songs tinged with sadness, blues, booze and rambling.

"You know, nothing like a little divorce and therapy to bring the sadness out of you," Black says. "Though, it's funny how some of the songs actually predate the divorce proceedings. I thought I was just writing Country and Western songs, but I guess it would end up being kind of prophetic."

Though the lyrics on Tears, due September 9th, are tinged with hurt and regret, Black and the Catholics (guitarists Rich Gilbert and David Philips, bassist David McCaffrey and drummer Scott Boutier) hardly shoe-gaze, infusing the songs with plenty of rock energy. "I still seek to entertain," he says, laughing. "Even if it's from a dark place, it is a pop record after all. I don't wanna drag anyone down."

Black admits that the album's mood (and certainly its title) might have been flavored by his forays into therapy. "You get all emotional and everything," he says, "talking about your feelings and all that [laughs]. My wife had been trying to get me to go down this road of being a little more direct for some years. So I had to go find something to make me cry, some artificial thing. 'Why don't you get a sad movie,' [my therapist] said. Are you kidding me? I laugh at people that cry at films. Having said that, I got into this Elliott Smith record that I discovered through The Royal Tenenbaums. I can pop on "Needle in the Hay," just thirty seconds and I'll be bawling like a baby."

As with his dual 2002 releases Devil's Workshop and Black Letter Days, Tears was recorded live to two-track by the Catholics in their mobile studio. "Going live forces everybody playing to either ham it up or cut the bullshit or dig deep and give us something," Black says, "because it's all there on the tape. You can't erase anything. There's a little bit of a tightrope aspect. And hopefully we have enough perspective when we do it to recognize the failures and leave them off the record."

Black and the Catholics plan to take Tears over to Europe this fall, returning to the States for dates early next year -- which should provide ample time to calm some of the eager murmuring inspired by his appearance on a London radio station earlier this month, when he said, "I do dream about the Pixies reunion." Two years ago, Black told Rolling Stone that such an event would take place "if I were penniless or a family member needed a kidney transplant."

Black won't rule out the possibility, but he seems happiest doing what he's been doing for the past ten years. "The Brits are so talented with their sarcasm, I figured I'd try it out a little bit, but they didn't get it at all," he says of his Pixies reunion comments. "There's nothing planned, but the offers are always there on the table from the promoters. I can't say it won't happen, but I won't say it will. Joey [guitarist Santiago] and I have to get really drunk to start talking about the Pixies. Who knows, maybe in our next little drinking session, we'll decide to do it."

Show Me Your Tears track listing:

Nadine
Everything Is New
My Favorite Kiss
Jaina Blues
New House of the Pope
Horrible Day
Massif Centrale
When Will Happiness Find Me Again?
Goodbye Lorraine
This Old Heartache
The Snake
Coastline
Manitoba

ANDREW DANSBY
(July 23, 2003)