Pixies: demented demon gods of Biblical violence, collegiate lust, UFOs, heaven-bound monkeys and bits that sound like getting a Spanish lesson from Mama. The cornerstone of modern alternative rock and, since their 2004 reunion, arguably the most formidable live band on this particular planet of sound. Yet some diehards insist Pixies just aren't Pixies without Kim Deal, the smiling indie-auntie figurehead who tempered Frank Black's maniacal barks and Joey Santiago's snake-wrestling riffs with melodic bass-lines and cheerleader harmonies, the honey glaze on a raw offal delicacy. Continuing the band without Deal – who left just weeks before the recent release of new Pixies material she was rumoured to have opposed recording – reduces Pixies to a glorified extension of Black's solo career, they argue. It's like yanking one leg off a thoroughbred and still backing it to win the Derby.
On tonight's evidence, piffle. Dotted between ravenous classics that have lost none of their brutalised pop punch, Black's new creations master that tricksy balance of both evoking and advancing his band's trademark aesthetic.
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While Bagboy finds Dave Lovering dabbling with electronic drum-pads, Andro Queen is a civil war battle ballad that could have fallen off 1990's album Bossanova and both What Goes Boom and Indie Cindy recall Trompe le Monde's panache in lashing hardcore thrashes to cute surf chorus hooks. You can snipe – the vortex of the room sucks the meat off a cranky Velouria, new bassist Kim Shattuck's take on Deal's coo on Where Is My Mind? is pretty but no competition for the original, and Black yaps out his most memorably wicked lines as if spitting tasteless gum. But Pixies' peerless canon is bulletproof; Gouge Away erupts quiet/loud hellfire, their Jesus and Mary Chain cover Head On finds escape-velocity ecstasy in suicidal nihilism and Here Comes Your Man remains grunge's catchiest sitcom theme. When Santiago interrupts the rabid flamenco of Vamos to unplug his guitar and tap squalls of noise out of the wire itself like he's handling pure feedback, there's no denying Pixies' superlative live impact. Deal or no Deal.
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