The Breeders: Mountain Battles : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

All low-fi screeching and girl-group cooing, 1993's unlikely hit "Cannonball" was the great pop single Kim Deal's other band, the Pixies, never allowed themselves. Her nasal stoner-girl come-on — "I'll be your whatever-you-want/The bong in this reggae song" — set a nation of Converse-wearing misfits swooning.

Now, sisters Kim and Kelley Deal reconvene for a set that steals home while the reunited Pixies play footsie in the studio waiting room. "I can feel it . . . oh, oh, oh, oh," Kim shouts over a Keith Moon-style drum assault on "Overglazed," teetering over what sounds like the best indie-rock orgasm ever. But soon enough, shouts of "I love no one/And no one loves me!" and "I've been waiting for a message all night!" sound like a generation of pissed-off women fogging their iPhones. Steve Albini (Nirvana, PJ Harvey), among other producers, keeps things raw; indeed, the record's primitive art punk sometimes echoes Nirvana. But that's appropriate: Lauding life's crappiness and occasional okayness in English, German and Spanish (see the classic Mexican ballad "Regalame Esta Noche"), Mountain Battles is a record the late Breeders fan Kurt Cobain would have loved.