The Breeders: All Nerve

FEW WORDS DESCRIBE Kim Deal's songwriting and delivery of emotion better than "terse". In the Pixies and a series of Breeders albums she presented herself as a Peppermint Patty type: a wry older sister offering semaphored wisdom, often nuts, always amusing. How she's gone platinum and remained a beloved goddess for the Reagan-Poppy Bush generation is a mystery of timing, kismet, and talent. Drug problems quashed any hint of productivity, but every time the Breeders dropped a record, whether 1993's beloved Last Splash or 2008's Mountain Battles, they commented — tersely, always — on an age that demanded the lo-fi gnarl. To choose a favorite Breeders record is silly; they're all good, including Deal's Amps project Pacer and 2002's Title TK, the latter recorded in a slough of despond as complete as Neil Young's during Tonight's the Night and exhilarating anyway.