Xiu Xiu

Women as Lovers | Kill Rock Stars
By MIKAEL WOOD  |  March 18, 2008
3.0 3.0 Stars
inside_XIU-XIU---WOMEN-AS-L
Jamie Stewart, the only founding member left in this creepy Oakland-based avant-rock outfit, has been releasing recordings at such a steady clip since 2002 that you might expect him to have run out of new ways to provoke discomfort. Yet Xiu Xiu’s sixth studio full-length is no less unsettling than any of their previous efforts. Over undulating soundscapes full of off-kilter percussion, wheezing synthesizers, and the occasional blast of brass, Stewart sings about war and sex and prescription drugs in an exaggerated whisper that makes it seem he’s divulging the deepest of secrets — which he might well be, if you could only make sense of the lyrics. Women As Lovers’ appealingly perverse centerpiece is a skronky cover of Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” that has Stewart duetting with Swans mastermind Michael Gira; it’s appealing because it rocks and perverse because it’s far from the weirdest thing here.

Xiu Xiu + Thao Nguyen + The Get Down Stay Down | Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston | March 21 | 617. 369.3306
Related: Make yourself uncomfortable, Xiu Xiu | Dear God, I Hate Myself, The future is now, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , David Bowie, Museum of Fine Arts, Jamie Stewart,  More more >
| More

Most Popular
Blogs
 More: Phlog  |  Music  |  Film  |  Books  |  Politics  |  Media  |  Election '08  |  Free Speech  |  All Blogs
ARTICLES BY MIKAEL WOOD
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS | FURTHER  |  July 07, 2010
    Astralwerks (2010)
  •   DEVO | SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY  |  July 01, 2010
    Given the theory of de-evolution these Ohio brainiacs began expounding more than 30 years ago, it makes a sad kind of sense that Devo's first album since 1990's Smooth Noodle Maps offers such a charmless, base-level version of the band's synth-addled new wave.
  •   TAIO CRUZ | ROKSTARR  |  June 24, 2010
    When Taio Cruz sings, "I can't live without you," in "Take Me Back," pop-song conventions tell us he's referring to a lover.
  •   THE FUTUREHEADS | THE CHAOS  |  June 16, 2010
    "I wish that I could stop the noise," sings Barry Hyde not long into The Chaos . It sure doesn't seem that way.
  •   BETTYE LAVETTE | INTERPRETATIONS: THE BRITISH ROCK SONGBOOK  |  June 01, 2010
    Bettye LaVette’s previous two albums had titles that required a little digging to unpack.

 See all articles by: MIKAEL WOOD

LATEST SLIDESHOWS

All Slideshows