The Night The Zombies Came is Pixies tenth album, if you count their classic 1987 4AD mini LP Come On Pilgrim, and first new music since 2022s acclaimed Doggerel LP. 13 new songs that find Pixies looking ahead to the most cinematic record of their career.

Songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Black Francis explains:Fragments that are related and juxtaposed with other fragments in other songs. And in a collection of songs in a so-called LP, you end up making a kind of movie.

Druidism, apocalyptic shopping malls, mediaeval themed restaurants, 12th century poetic form, surf rock, gargoyles, bog people, and the distinctive dry drum sound of 1970s era Fleetwood Mac are just some of the disparate wonders that inform the new songs.

For the new album recording sessions the band returned to work with producer Tom Dalgety, who drummer David Lovering refers to as a fifth Pixie after producing 2016s Head Carrier, 2019s Beneath the Eyrie and 2022s Doggerel. Early on in the recording process at Guilford Sound studio in Vermont, the band noticed the new songs were dividing into two camps: what they came to call the Dust Bowl Songs – country-tinged, ballad-esque numbers such as Primrose and Mercy Me, and on the other side, the albums furious punk numbers such as Youre So Impatient and Oyster Beds. Only Jane (The Night the Zombies Came) keeps its feet in both camps reminiscent of early 60s Phil Spector, the band hitting the sweet spot between mushy and abrasive, its a track that Black Francis allegedly likened to being chased by a swarm of bees.

The Night The Zombies Came sessions also saw Pixies welcoming new bass player Emma Richardson (Band Of Skulls) to the line up; the first British band member to join the group. Theres also an expanded role for guitarist Joey Santiago. After contributing his first-ever Pixies lyrics on Doggerel, for the new record Santiago wrote the words to Hypnotised by completing a complex lyrical riddle of sorts, known as a sestina.

Tracklist:

Side 1:

1. Primrose
2. Youre So Impatient
3. Jane (The Night the Zombies Came)
4. Chicken
5. Hypnotised
6. Johnny Good Man
7. Motoroller

Side 2:

1. I Hear You Mary
2. Oyster Beds
3. Mercy Me
4. Ernest Evans
5. Kings of the Prairie
6. The Vegas Suite