Review by Heather Phares
Xiu Xiu continue to push the envelope with their third album in two years, Fabulous Muscles. While their mix of low-res electronics, flamboyant synth pop, and experimental rock sounds slightly more accessible than it has before, that just makes it easier for Jamie Stewart's confrontational vocals and lyrics to sink in that much deeper. As always, Xiu Xiu juxtapose their heroic doses of misery with lovely, if rough-edged, music: the drooping synth lines and chunky beats on "Crank Heart" and "Brian Vampire" sound like the music from some unspeakably sad video game, while "Little Panda McElroy"'s acoustic guitars have a hesitant prettiness that makes lyrics like "I can stop hating my own heart/I can do it because of you" even more intimate. Stewart either whispers obsessively or shout-sings, as if he's trying to drown out his own thoughts, and does both on the brilliantly morose "I Luv the Valley OH!," on which he vows, "It's a heart that you made/And I won't rest until I break it." More so than with many other bands, Xiu Xiu's music immerses the listener in the band's world view and the songs' characters: "Bunny Gamer" is an extraordinary portrait of yearning and self-loathing that begins as an internal monologue of an unrequited lover and then becomes a painful dialogue between him and the object of his affection, who is much more careless and carefree. The song's dead-calm desperation borders on the creepy and pathetic, but this is the uncomfortable territory that Xiu Xiu claim as their own. Much like the musical equivalent of Todd Solondz or Harmony Korine, Xiu Xiu set out to disturb their audience in pursuit of higher artistic goals. More often than not (and arguably more often than Solondz and Korine), the group succeeds. "Support Our Troops OH!," which graphically depicts a U.S. troop killing a young girl, could have been played for shock value, but the palpable anger that runs through the track is more implosive than strident. Similarly, "Nieces Pieces (Boat Knife Version)" explores a dysfunctional family with quiet contempt and dark humor rather than outright rage. It all culminates on "Fabulous Muscles (Mama Black Widow Version)" -- its effeminately macho title is yet another one of Xiu Xiu's dualities -- a mix of sex, violence, and sadness that features the lyrics "Cremate me after you come on my lips, honey boy/Keep my ashes in a vase beneath your workout bench" and manages to be horrific, romantic, and funny at the same time. Fabulous Muscles might be the best expression of Xiu Xiu's unrepentantly original music; even if the world that the band creates isn't necessarily one you'd want to visit all the time, it remains fascinating.
Ever since the release of their 2002 debut Knife Play, Xiu Xiu frontman Jamie Stewart has been hard at work redefining the concept of "challenging" music. Rather than obfuscating songs with grating noise and ostensibly atypical structures, Stewart challenges the most fundamental conventions of musical expression and honesty with an intensity that's often been misread as parody, irony or cheap theatrics. Thus, while Xiu Xiu's music has continued to gain support in recent years, it's rare to hear a recommendation that isn't qualified with some sort of hesitant apology for the band's atypical instrumentation and over-the-top delivery.
Well, all that can end right now. After showing tremendous musical growth on last year's A Promise, Stewart has come frighteningly close to producing his masterwork-- an album that's as accessible as it is unconventionally affecting. On Fabulous Muscles, Stewart plays with dissonance without succumbing to it, contorting electronic drones, drum machine beats and his own haunting tenor into a propulsive and elegant record. The songs are often tremendously dense, but the combinations and contrast Stewart teases out of the mix are always immediate and striking. Indeed, the quality of the melodic and instrumental interplay here is right up there with many more straightforward pop bands, but Stewart manages to use it to an entirely different end. Detached from the safety and set form of traditional pop music, Fabulous Muscles is an album bursting with tension, tenderness, pain, and restraint-- concepts that have informed Xiu Xiu's music from the beginning, but which the band has never so deftly expressed.
"Crank Heart" immediately establishes Fabulous Muscles as both accessible and deeply layered. Perfectly balancing melody, energy and chaos, the song sounds as if it's ready to blow apart at any minute, held together only by a hauntingly present force of will. The tension increases on the album's title track, which appeared last year on a split EP with the Jim Yoshii Pile-Up. This new version foregoes the spooky atmospherics and whirring spaceship sounds of the EP version in lieu of a chilling, almost self-punishing restraint.
This restraint is often shaken by an underlying intensity, best conveyed on "I Luv the Valley OH!", quite possibly the finest single track Xiu Xiu has ever released. "I Luv the Valley OH!" is an immediately accessible song, but also a profoundly subversive one. Mimicking traditional pop forms while simultaneously defiling them, the intrinsic discomfort of "I Luv the Valley OH!" comes through in both its structure and its articulation. The song's titular scream provides the frozen emotional centerpiece for a feverish and insistent dirge, and a rare moment of absolute release amidst an album often marked by a chilling sense of emotional confinement.
Only once does Fabulous Muscles threaten to descend into absolute cacophony. On the harrowing "Support Our Troops (Black Angels OH!)", Stewart tackles politics with characteristic intensity. Rather than hiding behind tried-and-true anti-war sloganeering, Stewart delves into the troubling psychology of war. Whether or not the sentiments expressed here are "correct" is entirely moot-- what's striking about the song is not so much its direct political implications, but the overwhelming and sincere sense of human terror that permeates it.
Part of what makes this record so powerful, though, is the fact that this darkness often lifts. On "Clowne Towne", Stewart sings, "Your true self has become weak, alone, and annoying/ A true ridiculous dumbass," in an oddly sweet combination of fondness and frustration that fits perfectly into a disarmingly catchy song. "Little Panda McElroy", which first appeared on the same split EP as "Fabulous Muscles", remains one of the most poignant and complicated love songs I've ever heard. With lyrics like, "I can stop wanting to kill myself.../ Because of you," this is about as far from your typical, rote and sterile love song as you can get. This version offers an even more moving musical exploration, as Stewart's breathy voice is subsumed by pulsing electronic drones into a single, insistent beat.
Though there are many notable high points to Fabulous Muscles, its overwhelming consistency is what cements its place as Xiu Xiu's finest. The album does not contain a single hiccup or yawn-- no extraneous noise, no potentially offputting histrionics, no throwaways and no dull moments. Fabulous Muscles, like the best of Xiu Xiu's catalog, is challenging not because it's particularly dissonant or noisy, but rather because it addresses you in a manner that's categorically different from what you've come to expect from any kind of music-- pop, experimental or otherwise. With Fabulous Muscles, Jamie Stewart continues to explore and expand this mode of address, and in doing so has made an album that is profound, innovative, and absolutely vital.
-Matt LeMay, February 17th, 2004
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