Surfer Rosa - Blender

Review

Surfer Rosa

(4AD)
Release Date: 03/21/1988 12:00

The topless flamenco dancer on the cover is beautiful. So is the music, in an abrasive, filthy way. The band’s first full-length album is full of cramped, herky-jerky snarls about maiming and weird sex: “Broken Face” and “Break My Body” harness loneliness and self-loathing to images of deformation—Pixies perennials; and “Cactus” smolders hungrily with lust. The keening “Where Is My Mind?” (M.I.A. copped its refrain on Kala) and Deal-helmed “Gigantic” reveal softer concerns (even if the latter is about penis size). “I wish Kim was allowed to write more,” Kurt Cobain once said. “Because ‘Gigantic’ is their best song.”

DOWNLOAD “Cactus,” “Gigantic,” “Where Is My Mind?”

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