Paz Lenchantin, the Argentine American bassist, has worked up a hell of a resume. In 1999, she helped form A Perfect Circle, Maynard James Keenan’s “other band” at the turn of the century. A few years later, she joined Billy Corgan’s indie-rock super-group Zwan, appearing on that group’s only full-length platter. An accomplished violinist in her own right, Lenchantin offered backing strings for a Queens of the Stone Age song in 2002. She returned to the “featured guest” post three years later on Silver Jews’ Tanglewood Numbers. Lenchantin’s C.V. and discography are not short on substance. This year, Paz releases her third solo outing, Triste.
But, if there’s anything that will help listeners navigate their expectations for Triste,…

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…it’s poring over Lenchantin’s decade holding down the bottom end for Pixies, America’s once-and future-alt-rock-kings. While the velvety melodicism of Pixies bassist-extraordinaire Kim Deal does pop out its head more than a few times via Lenchantin’s four-string work on the new, 12-song LP, Pixies frontman Black Francis appears to loom equally large–even in his absence. “Wish I Was There,” the most conventionally alt-rock-ish tune on Triste, is, no question about it, a dead-ringer for the iconic Pixies song “Where Is My Mind?” The parallels feel so removed from the incidental that listeners will wonder if the song teeters on satire. The lyrics, especially the tune’s opening verse, seem to reinforce the link: “Wish I was there when no one else cared/ Wouldn’t even dare think to support you/ Wish I was there but life isn’t fair/ Least that’s what they showed you.“

It tracks, because the Pixies announced Lenchantin’s departure in March 2024, saying the bassist wanted “to concentrate on her own projects.” Shortly thereafter, Lenchantin quipped to Rolling Stone that her “departure [was] a bit of a surprise to [her] as it is to many.” Lenchantin offers longtime fans looking to read the tea leaves tons of possible references to the split. “Maybe after this cyclе ends/We come back as friеnds,” she sings on the appropriately titled “Save It For Hell.” Later, she adds, “But until then, no more to tell/ Save yourself and save it for hell.” Then, there’s this self-referential nugget from “Roll With The Punches”—Another day, another airport/ Tonight we play another festival.” Lenchantin continues, “Rainy and cold, I wasn’t feeling well/ Let my band know, they never seem to care/ Cause we’re told that the show must go on/ Must go on boys.” It’s hard not to imagine the repeating sample of someone dismissively spitting out the song’s title isn’t a reference to the aforementioned Pixies frontman.

And, yes, those songs are great, if predictable. What Lenchantin does remarkably well elsewhere on Triste, though, is dwell in the unexpected. Webs of piano measures, measured and repetitive, lurk behind a veil of breathy vocals on the devastating “Lucia,” which Lenchantin sings (as she does elsewhere) in Spanish. The first verse is a beautiful spit-take on nostalgia: “Dreams of a place/ Where you can play/ I will see you again/ Return to where you are.” Lenchantin offers lyrics dripping with this lowercase-r romanticism throughout Triste – and quite effectively. In “Novela,” an absolute earwig of an album-opener, Lenchantin quickly struts her stuff in multiple mediums. Her driving, but somehow supple, bassline is definitely her own. The piano backing is instantly engaging. And her singing, a breathy and subdued vessel, is warm, familial—and, above all, welcoming. “A novel-like day, my grandmother used to say/ True dreams, sleeping while awake,” she sings in Spanish. She continues with, “Know how to sew, know how to embroider/ Do what you do, I prefer to fly.” It really is that kind of record.

Lenchantin’s Triste, whose cover drops Biblical references, also plays more than a little bit to the English majors and lapsed Catholics in the audience, as Christianity and Christian iconography are foundational for many of the songs. At one point, the songwriter tries to unknot maternal narratives around the Virgin Mary—and, yes, projections about sibling desires—by adding just a little bit more string. The upbeat—if almost overcooked—synths percolate repeatedly to the surface on “Woman of Nazareth.” But it’s Lenchantin’s vocals, breathy to the point of featheriness, that steal the spotlight as she repeats the line, “Oh, Mary be my mother, so I can have a brother.”

And, yes, she blurs the canonical further with the hunger for parental intimacy: “Like one of his apostles I need someone to follow/ I read it in his gospel, he said to his disciples/ ‘Born without a father? Son behold your mother.’” The lyrics are bizarrely potent—maybe even more so because we hear them straight from a female narrator. On the ballad “Adam,” which flirts with harmonica, Lenchantin again tackles gender while literally playing the role of Eve before her expulsion from Eden, repeating “C’mon Adam, c’mon.” If there’s any implicit guilt for the whole casting-humanity-out-of-God’s-kingdom thing, Lenchantin works through it by owning the theme, really sinking in the blade and twisting it around a bit. There’s nothing holy about “In The Garden With The Devil,” where Lenchantin’s reverb-laced vocals and lyrics—often about confession—tilt toward the demented, as buzzy bass and odd little descents on piano rule the roost.

…Not sold on the depth of Lenchantin’s lyric commitment to the trope or how she claims it as her own? Take the opening verse (again, sung in Spanish) of “Sin Dios,” which has nothing to do with sinning and everything to do with embracing atheism – or abandonment: “Juana went to protect herself as a woman/ You have to keep going to live, outside of being/ If not, I continue/ I continue, without God.”

Now, it’s worth noting the arrival of Triste was more than a tiny bit marred by noise. In August, when Lenchantin popped the news about the LP by releasing lead single “Hang Tough,” some listeners on Reddit drew some similarities between the bassist’s latest and Chico Buarque/Milton Nascimento’s Brazilian classic “Cálice.” Shortly thereafter, per Pitchfork and the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, that South American songwriting duo filed a notice claiming Lenchantin plagiarized “Calice.” Lenchantin said nothing—and continues to say nothing. After allegations, her song quickly vanished from both streaming services and the tracklist for Triste.

But, let’s end more positively with the record’s two epic closing songs. Both songs hint at the heartfelt narrative drama Lenchantin aired in past work like the beautiful, Western-tinged “Bloom Like Roses,” from 2006’s Songs for Luci. These closing songs, though, are larger. Their wingspan stretches further. Given a few listens, few will accuse Triste of feeling slight or underwhelming. On “Save It For Hell” and the album-closing title track, though, Lenchantin pulls out all the stops and the results, often complete with strings or heavy laments, feel cinematic.

Good record? No. Great record. And, yes, if you’re looking for a little behind-the-scenes play-by-play on life as a Pixie, it’s in here. But Triste is at its best when Lenchantin happily goes off script. Listeners won’t need to stretch far to see and hear just how deep or how far Lenchantin’s musical spring runs. — spectrumculture.com

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