"The Night The Zombies Came" is the Pixies' tenth album, if you count their classic 4AD mini-LP Come On Pilgrim from 1987, and the first new music since the acclaimed LP Doggerel from 2022. 13 new songs with which the Pixies look back on the most cinematic record of their career. For the new album's recording sessions, the band once again worked with producer Tom Dalgety, who drummer David Lovering describes as the "fifth Pixie", having produced 2016's Head Carrier, 2019's Beneath the Eyrie and 2022's Doggerel. Early on in the recording process at Guilford Sound Studio in Vermont, the band noticed that the new songs split into two camps: the so-called "Dust Bowl Songs" - country-tinged, ballad-like numbers like "Primrose" and "Mercy Me" - and on the other side, the album's angry punk numbers like "You're So Impatient" and "Oyster Beds". Only "Jane (The Night the Zombies Came)" falls in either camp - reminiscent of early '60s Phil Spector, the band hits the sweet spot between kitschy and raucous; it's a song that Black Francis supposedly likened to being chased by a swarm of bees. At the "Night The Zombies Came" sessions, the Pixies also welcomed new bassist Emma Richardson (Band Of Skulls) to the line-up; the first British band member to join the group. Guitarist Joey Santiago also has a bigger role. After contributing his very first lyric for the Pixies on Doggerel, Santiago wrote the lyrics to "Hypnotized" for the new record, solving a complex lyrical puzzle of sorts known as Sestina.