Get the producers at VH1 on the phone pronto. The Breeders -- yes, the same band who sailed off into indie-rock Nirvana way back in '93 or '94 and then just kinda disappeared amid all kinds of nasty rock-and-roll rumors -- are back and more than ready for a Behind the Music special. For the first time since 1993's Last Splash (Elektra), they're actually sounding like the Breeders, which is to say like an indie-rock band who write twisted little guitar riffs that are as quirky as they are catchy, and like a bunch of boozers given to acting inappropriately at all the right times so that it's clear they're not pawns of some corporate svengali who's promised them the keys to the kingdom of rock stardom.

The Breeders -- originally a side project started by Pixies bassist Kim Deal, Throwing Muses guitarist Tanya Donelly, and bassist Josephine Wiggs, with Slint drummer Britt Walford filling in on the sly -- hit their stride when Kim's twin, Kelley, quit her Dayton computer job and, even though she couldn't really play guitar, settled in to make a record with her sister, Wiggs, and full-time drummer Jim MacPherson. It turned out to be the perfect combination for a sweet and sour guitar-pop disc that had just enough Pixies in it to keep old Kim fans happy but not so much that this new band could be called an extension of the old one.

But after one tumultuous year in which "Cannonball" became one of the big hits of the summer, fall, winter, and maybe even spring, everything started going to shit. Kim was rumored to have become obsessive when it came to "getting the right sounds" in the studio. And then there was Kelley's drug, uh, heroin problem, which, along with destroying band morale, found her first fending off charges in a courtroom and then spending some quality time at the Hazelton rehab center in Minnesota. Kim soldiered on with a band called the Amps, who weren't all that bad live but released a willfully mediocre CD in the mid '90s, as if Kim were saying, "I'm not making another good album until Kelley's back in the band." Kelley formed the Kelley Deal 6000 and did some jamming with Sebastian Bach that we'll just forget about for now. The two Kelley Deal 6000 CDs, however, suggested the non-musical sister was ready to start playing music again because, well, they both sounded like the Breeders minus one crucial ingredient -- Kim's skewed pop sensibility. In other words, by Behind the Music standards, the Breeders had experienced the rise and the fall. All they had to do was find the route to redemption and the VH1 crews could start working up some background interviews.

Redemption doesn't ensure success, and there are no guarantees that in today's musical climate the Breeders' new Title TK (Elektra) is going to burn up the charts. All a band have to do to qualify for redemption is admit their past errors and assert that they've once again found the elusive Muse. Hell, you don't even have to make a passable album to be considered redeemed, but the Breeders have done that and more. Title TK sounds like what the follow-up to Last Splash! should have sounded like. Kim and Kelley harmonize over guitars that seem to be on the verge of going out of tune while a muscular drum beat and a throbbing bass line hold the entire mess together. The lyrics are mostly incomprehensible; every once in a while you catch a line like "Why is it floating in my beer?" ("Little Fury") that suggests a time or a place or, in this case, some kind of party. But the Breeders have never been about literal meaning -- their strength is in their sound, which is at once agitated and soothing, like skydiving from thousands of feet and watching the world go by in a flurry of beauty before you pull the chute and rest easy in the arms of the wings that will bring you safely back to earth.

VH1 will be pleased to learn that the stories about the making of Title TK are numerous and legendary. Apparently, Kim just couldn't find the right drum sound, so she went back to Ohio and learned how to play the drum tracks herself. That also seems to be her playing bass most of the time -- or else someone who's studied those old Pixies albums pretty well. Yet for all Kim's dominance in the musical department, Kelley has become an increasingly vital part of the Breeders sound, even if it's just the way her background vocals compete with and flirt with Kim's, creating a tension that you can't manufacture. There's plenty more to the story, almost none of which has to do with the refreshing music on the CD. You can find most of the dirt in a New York Times magazine article that came out on May 17 of this year, or just wait for the Behind the Music special.

Issue Date: May 24 - 30, 2002