Honeycomb Back Porch/EMI Music   ••½ Sound   ••••

In the midst of the big Pixies reunion tour comes Frank Black’s Honeycomb, his most countrified solo album. Here, his not unappealing if homely croon is accompanied by star session men (Steve Cropper, Buddy Miller) in a program of 11 originals and three covers. It’s decently done — but you have to be a huge fan to overlook the fact that Black in a low-keyed setting means a somewhat narrow, depressive emotional range ...and that the best song here is a cover of Dan Penn and Chips Moman’s “Dark End of the Street” ...and that even a potential piece of camp like “Song of the Shrimp” (from the Elvis Presley film Girls! Girls! Girls!) comes across as a little dour.

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