X's & O's for Xiu Xiu

By Jason Hunter

Xiu Xiu play a blend of damaged art rock, goth drone, and noise. While it is a difficult sound to acclimate to, it's harder to understand if frontman Jamie Stewart is really this fucked up or just poking fun. Take the lines from "I Broke Up (SJ)" - "Break into children's hospitals crying out: Don't Fuck With Me!" and "This is the worse vacation ever I'm going to cut open your forehead with a roofing shingle". No one is that messed up, right? Right? Xiu Xiu get their haunting sound by eschewing traditional instruments in exchange for tape loops, Asian percussion, and electronic squeals. The most interesting and bombastic releases were the first two LPs - Knife Play (2002) and A Promise (2003). The short melodies and catchy moments found on those releases mutated into an almost-pop record on 2004's Fabulous Muscles. This LP actually had stand out singles like "I Luv the Valley, Oh!", "Clowne Towne", "Brian the Vampire", and "Crank Heart". From here though Xiu Xiu went through line-up changes and shifted to a semi-acoustical sound that swapped bombast for dirges This would go one for the next three releases (La Foret (2005), Air Force, (2006) Women As Lovers (2008) with the results varying between interesting ("Hello From Eau Clarie"), cute (a cover of Queen's "Under Pressure") and decent (everything else). 2010 saw the release of Dear God, I Hate Myself which brings back some of the good ol' bombast that I'd been missing. Check out Xiu Xiu. It's one of the few alternative bands that have a distinct sound.