Xiu Xiu - 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips

Xiu Xiu – 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips

★★★★☆

Released September 27th, 2024 on Polyvinyl Records

Xiu Xiu have always been a bit odd.

I like understatements.

The California experimental group have spent most of the last twenty-plus years holding two truths in their minds simultaneously. First, human existence is a lonely, awkward, anxiety-ridden tragedy; Second, that you can try to banish all that tragedy through loud music and dancing. It may not always work, but you owe it to yourself to try. Born out of maladjusted awkward people tuning into San Diego pirate radio, Xiu Xiu albums are always a mixture of deeply uncomfortable moments and passages that explode the entire world away from you. It’s industrial and goth without ever once falling into the trope holes of either. Jamie Stewart brings to mind the voices of Robert Smith and Trent Reznor without actually reminding you of either of those people. It’s more of a vibe, a touch upon a part of your brain that you can’t quite articulate or even pinpoint.

The very nature of the out-there, go-for-it experimentation of the group means that their discography can be hit and miss. Despite this, they’ve been on a roll since just before the pandemic. From 2017’s Forget onward, they’ve zeroed in on a sound that, while it can’t be pinned down, at least is consistent in its variation. 13″ is the culmination of this sound, the most solid and corporeal they’ve sounded ever. There are moments of pure hooky bliss, like on the corrupted and beautiful “Common Loon.” There is complete industrial crunch, like “Veneficium.” There are the confessional moans from Stewart, like his admission that he’s done nothing right in his entire adult life on the opening “Arp Omni.” Is it hymnlike, almost? In a world where hymns wither you into ash before rebuilding you into something new and more disturbing? Sure, yeah, you could say that. See also “Pale Flower” for a mix between those two states of being.

What sets 13″ apart from the last several Xiu Xiu records is how accessible it is. That is, how accessible it is compared to previous Xiu Xiu outings; I still don’t think you can play this in mixed company and come away clean, but it’s more immediately listenable, more set into the frameworks of the sounds that they’ve been mining for decades. When the uneasy calm of “Arp Omni” explodes into the drums that mark the beginning of “Maestro One Chord”, it’s recognizable. It’s a certified Move, and while the group deconstructs it as usual, it’s an entry point for people unused to how weird things can get. I was one of those people, a long time ago. I sat down with Women As Lovers, got to Stewart moaning about hot peppers on “Puff and Bunny” and chalked it up as ‘maybe not for me.’ As usual I came around on it, some time around the point where the entire world started going to hell in a real hurry. Now, with 13″, I ‘get’ the group, as much as anyone can ever ‘get’ them.