Blame Kurt Cobain. By nicking and mainstreaming the loud-quiet-loud dynamic of, say, Gigantic, then crediting Pixies, he effectively reduced them to one-trick ponies in popular culture.
But the band have always been so much more, so much weirder, than simple sudden changes in volume and intensity. Their debut EP begins with a stuttering twangy surf guitar lick. It features what sounds like a folk song on meth about the “son of incestuous union”, and a pumped-up polka partly sung in Spanish.