Album Review: 13 Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips by Xiu Xiu

You can't refuse love like this, it is criminal The term "anti-", in the ancient Greek, did not always denote opposition. "To be in place of", "in exchange of", the counterfeit, the false imitation. In eschatology, the Anti-Christ especially, isn't necessarily written as merely oppositional. Jamie Stewart's relationship with pop, with noise rock, their mode of experimentation, all tend to muddy any sense of pure opposition.

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“I have done almost nothing right / My entire adult life,” Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart sings on their new record’s opening track, “Arp Omni”. “But having dared to touch the fire with you / Breaks the chains of my being nothing.” In many ways, those lines describe the Xiu Xiu aesthetic - their often unsettling music tends to cross lines of shame and desire. The latest work from multi-instrumentalists Stewart and Angela Seo and percussionist David Kendrick will not come as much of a surprise for fans of their music.

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A few months ago, a new friend asked me to make them a Xiu Xiu mix. They were understandably intimidated by the group's output - an album every year or so since 2002, plus a colossal number of collaborations, EPs and one-off cover versions - but intrigued by the intense passion, numerous musical shifts and goth credentials that I had spent around twenty minutes monologuing about. I agreed instantly, of course - who doesn't love to make a mix of a favourite group for a new friend? - but the task felt punishing.

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Given its title, one might expect the latest Xiu Xiu album to be an unwieldy beast. Not so: this is one of the most accessible Xiu Xiu records in years, comprising nine songs across 36 minutes -- and it rocks. This may be partly down to the recent addition of David Kendrick on drums, but it may also be that Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo have gone as far down the rabbit hole of depravity as they can go (at least for now) and are emerging out the other side with a renewed focus on songs.

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