Playing like the widescreen director's cut version of Honeycomb, Frank Black's sprawling double album Fast Man Raider Man reunites him with the Memphis session legends who played with him last time, and adds even more stars to the cast of characters.  Full text...

he has never made a bad album, either, and "Fast Man Raider Man" is twice as not bad as usual.  Full text...

This is mature Frank Black, doing whatever the hell he wants to do. He's playing with his heroes and he's writing what he wants to write. So do him a favor and don't yell out "Debaser" when he comes to town and plays these pretty songs for you on his next tour.  Full text...

Fast Man Raider Man, a double album heats up the twangy, Southern-gothic soul of last year's Honeycomb.  Full text...

If you enjoyed Honeycomb, this improves on it, but not to the point where many who didn't like that album are apt to come around to Black's latest direction.  Full text...

So while it's hard to criticise Frank for having improved upon his last, well-recieved solo effort - and fair to compliment a good job well done - there must be a reason why good only becomes great from time to time: at 27 tracks, Fast Man Raider Man is simply too long, and, as such, a dilution.  Full text...

This double CD effort is aimed squarely at writing a great rock songbook, and with this in mind he surrounded himself with a cast of 60s and 70s instrumental luminaries.  Full text...

The sticker on the front trumpets Frank Black's 12th album as "his most ambitious", by which it simply means his longest. None of these 27 songs can touch the power and vision of Black's work with the Pixies.  Full text...

It's quite some indictment that by far the best tune among these 27 tracks is Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town", which Frank turns into a draggy boogie; but what's really astonishing is how many genuine rock legends were required to realise such modest returns.  Full text...

Too often, as on 'Highway To Lowdown', Black sounds like someone carefully, respectfully trying on a rhinestone Nudie suit and Stetson, using a borrowed vocabulary that never quite connects.  Full text...