The Breeders review – effortless pop gems from the grunge era
The Breeders, led by Kim Deal, on stage at the Troxy. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer
The first thing that twin Breeders guitarists Kim and Kelley Deal do when they hit the stage is begin feverishly adjusting their amps and effects pedals, calibrating their racket just so. The late Steve Albini, who engineered multiple albums for the four-piece, once noted band leader Kim Deal’s “absolute persistence in trying to achieve the sound in her head”. It was gushing hyperbole from a man known for his acid tongue.
The sound in Deal’s head remains both redolent of the grunge era, and gloriously, goofily free of it. The Breeders deal in bounding basslines, sticky guitars, weird noises and Kim’s own melodic vocals – all present on Saints, the band’s opening track tonight – and re-administered at various titrations across the course of 90 minutes. “Summer is ready when you are!” sings Deal sweetly, of the pleasures of going to the fair – her midwestern girl-next-door manner long providing camouflage for the obsessive sound architect within.
This hot summer night in London is part of a tour marking last year’s 30th anniversary of the Breeders’ 1993 breakout album, Last Splash. Tonight’s set leans mostly on that era and the band’s debut album, Pod (1990). Rarities feature. Being a hop and a skip from Limehouse, bassist Josephine Wiggs (the band’s token Briton) introduces Pod’s rarely aired song Lime House. (Later, she also tries to drum up interest for the band’s own fanzine, Breeders Digest.)
More recent works are sprinkled into the set list; there’s also a new song, Disobedience, which hopefully attests to the health of this lineup, reunited since 2018. In their imperial period, the Breeders suffered lengthy hiatuses and substance abuse issues; Kim Deal and drummer Jim MacPherson reportedly fell out for a decade-and-a-half over a misunderstanding. Tonight Kim and Jim are in constant communication, with Deal often turning to face MacPherson’s kit, grinning cues back and forth.
Olivia Rodrigo has said that her life divides into two sections: before she heard the Breeders’ Cannonball, and after
Albini was, of course, not the only Breeders fan-boy. His most famous client, Kurt Cobain, loved them too, and admired Deal’s work in her previous band, the Pixies (a band who audibly informed Nirvana). Cobain took the Breeders on tour with Nirvana in 1992.
Last year on stage with Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl wore the same Breeders T-shirt – a riff on the Las Vegas Raiders design – that Deal is sporting tonight; Deal, of course, pairs it with a regulation grunge-era over-shirt. More recent acolytes include the guitar-forward pop star Olivia Rodrigo, who also invited the Breeders to support her on her recent US jaunt, since extended with further summer dates.
Rodrigo has said that her life divides into two sections: before she heard the Breeders’ Cannonball, and after. You’d assume a number of people in this crowd may feel the same way, TikTok having had a big role in introducing the band to a new audience hungry for the band’s majority-female din. It can’t hurt that both Deal sisters remain almost preternaturally like their yesteryear selves, voices clear and true, their appetite for churning guitars and off-kilter detail undimmed by the decades. Cannonball is pristine tonight: raucous and blithe, redolent of the playfulness of the 90s, often forgotten in the era’s sombre retellings.
Delivered largely as recorded tonight, Cannonball’s album-mates have had a few glow-ups. Guesting tonight on violin is Magdalena McLean of the band Caroline, providing extra keening noises on tracks such as the terrific No Aloha and Drivin’ on 9, where McLean overlays the country-folk tune (originally by Boston band Ed’s Redeeming Qualities) with more of an Irish folk bent.
She’s there to add heft to the poignant Do You Love Me Now?, a tender song where Deal’s classic rock instincts are laid bare. The Breeders don’t play their Beatles cover, Happiness Is a Warm Gun, but Do You Love Me Now? has a strong Lennon-McCartney bent of its own – a tendency Deal always shared with Cobain.
The Breeders do, however, play a Pixies cover. Gigantic, sung by Deal, was a hit for the Pixies – a bittersweet turn of events that led to bassist Deal seeking a greater role in the band, which led to main man Black Francis dispensing with Deal’s services. So Deal doubled down on the band she had previously founded in frustration – the Breeders, and their second outing, Last Splash, outsold the entire Pixies catalogue that had been released to that date.
This traipse around an alternative 90s, one as serene-sounding as it was troubled-in-mind, ends on Divine Hammer – another pop gem seemingly unleashed effortlessly from Deal’s deep well of off-kilter singalongs. It’s a track that could describe Deal’s own approach to sound: pummelling, but elegiac. “I’d play it all day,” she croons.