Billboard is reporting that Frank Black has scrapped a load of new songs he had written with the intent of releasing a new Pixies album.

Black tells Billboard.com that about six months ago he wrote a batch of new songs for the band “in an attempt to convince one of the Pixies to make a Pixies record again. I can’t say who she is,” he adds with a laugh, referring, of course, to reticent bassist Kim Deal.

Ultimately, however, Black says that while he “liked how a few of [the songs] came out,” the exercise showed him that his heart wasn’t necessarily in it, either.

“I tried to find my Pixies muse and write a so-called Pixies number,” he says, “but they just weren’t any good. They sounded a little contrived or something. That’s the problem with trying to repeat something you did a long time ago; if you go ‘Okay, I’m gonna try to recreate something, tap into some mood I used years ago,’ even if it’s the same songwriter, it’s kind of fakey.”

“What can I say? Sometimes I wish I could just spit out some Pixies-esque songs, but it doesn’t really work that way,” he continues. “You write the songs and they come out the way they come out. They might sound like the Pixies, but these days mostly … not.”

Frankly (pun intended), I’m glad. I’d much rather that they not rush into a reunion album and poison a little bit of their legacy.