Folky abstract brothers

Xiu Xiu - Women As Lovers
Posted by Laila Hanson on 22-May-08 @ 03:10 PM

[3/5]
What we have on Women As Lovers is a potluck of heartrending, experimental cacophony broken up by moments of hushed beauty. On "songs" like "F.T.W.," Xiu Xiu front-freak Jamie Stewart injects a nightmare protagonist's inner monologue into psyched-out landscapes while his roving band of art school carnies keep pace with the rhythm of an accelerating heart beat. The whole mess is roughed up by the squelches and squeals of spaceship funk and '70s B-movie horror sound effects. It's about as close a facsimile of the fractured and foreboding scattershot thoughts that haunt most of us at night as one can capture on record. In the furious collage of found sounds, folk tropes, ambient affectations and punk aesthetics, Xiu Xiu deliver a true original-perhaps not an eminently listenable one (although the cover of Bowie's "Under Pressure" is a nice touch), but original all the same. (KILL ROCK STARS) Luke O'Neil


Official Website: http://www.killrockstars.com