Trompe le Monde

Recorded in Burbank, Paris and London, it was released by 4AD on 23 September 1991 and by Elektra in the US the next day. Gil Norton produced. The title is the first track's, a play on the French trompe-l'oeil and on trompe la mort, and some CD copies misprint it as Tromp le Monde. Head On is a cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain and reached number 6 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. U-Mass is about the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Santiago said in 2001 that its riff dates from when he and Francis were still students there.

AllMusic's Heather Phares noted Deal's reduced role and called it essentially Black Francis' solo debut. Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger put it ninth among his favorite albums of the 1990s, describing it as clean-lined sci-fi popmetal, perpetually underrated. Pitchfork's 2014 essay said that by this record the band had moved from quiet people who liked violent movies to violent people who made little time for movies. It was Deal's last album with the Pixies before the 1993 break-up.