It’s easy to groan at the thought of watching a Pixies documentary, but this doco surpasses the clich‚àöÔøΩs and ends up being a depiction of four great characters in a pretty weird situation.

In the opening scenes of loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies it becomes evident that each four members of the band has experienced a variation on the theme of drug and alcohol abuse, weight gain, minimal success in other musical projects and declining biannual royalty cheques in the years following their 1994 break up. It is thus laid bare that a tour has come at a fortuitous point in their lives. To their credit, and apparent shock, the world tour sells out in four-minutes, and is cheekily named ‘Pixies Sellout Tour’.

The famed creative tension between the musicians is verified but not hyped. The audience sees that lead singer Charles Thompson as a self-depreciating control freak, and that bassist Kim Deal is some kind of idiot savant, but the two have a warm yet distanced kinship.

The Pixies hardly sold a record in America during their career, with marginal success in the UK. But in the short while they were together, they managed to create music so moving that it forecast so much following it, and led to the band post-humously becoming cult superstars.

Kurt Cobain said of his hit ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, ‘I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies.’ The greatness of the film lies in both the intimacy of watching these people exist in the strange spatial environment of the reunion, and also in hearing their triumphant return to the stage. The doco is filled with warm humour, pathos and pride, and if you like music at all, you will enjoy this honest and intriguing portrait.