Switchblades on the Dancefloor: Xiu Xiu’s Puzzling New Album
Graphic by Nathan Hilyard
by nathan hilyard
Xiu Xiu’s music is best appreciated at an arm’s length. I recall spending a week and a half of lockdown trying to stomach one Xiu Xiu album per day until I would hopefully and inevitably be obsessed with them, but I only made it as far as 2008’s Women as Lovers before calling it quits. Nonetheless, their expansive discography keeps calling to me; there’s some puzzling magnetism drawing me back in. Once Xiu Xiu’s got their talons in you, they’re certainly not letting go.
The band’s newest release, 13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips, feels like a victory lap. Coming from 2023’s obtuse and aggressive Ignore Grief, Frank Beltrame maintains the same abrasiveness, but soothes and calms their sound like an unruly street cat. The opener “Arp Omni” leads the pack like a red herring. Frontman Jamie Stewart’s creeping, stage-whisper vocals tease out familiar themes of grief and worthlessness: “I’ve done almost nothing right / My entire adult life.” Floating synths swirl and mesh within a mournful string arrangement. A few seconds of silence serve as reprieve, but just as soon the real meat and potatoes of the record begin: two drum hits, a fragmented bass line, then… WHACK! The insatiable groove of “Maestro One Chord” shoots right into place hitting the ear like fists in the mosh pit.
They’re having more fun than ever, and by the album’s lead single, “Common Loon,” Xiu Xiu is rocking forward at full speed. Their ever-unique guitar riffs are elastic, bending and stretching around a pounding beat. Think of “Common Loon” as Xiu Xiu’s Big-Bad-Wolf-sound in Grandmother’s clothing. Grandma Xiu Xiu may not be fooling anyone, but they still look damn good in that costume. The track’s pop structure clings to their radical noise like bad makeup. The music video by Alicia McDaid features McDaid in a variety of scandalous outfits and cakey body paints wandering around, licking soft serve, squatting bare-assed on frosted cakes, and playing roles including but never-ever limited to: “mcdazzler, Britney Spears, The Angelologist, Smurfette, Garfield, Pepe, Anna Nicole Smith Joker, Led Zeppelin groupie, Galactica Darkstar, Jason Voorhees, Frida Kardashian, Viagra, Goth Monica Geller, Chemtrails, Ghöstmilf, She Hulk, Carmela Soprano, Cathy, Bret Michaels Andy Warhol and Odie”(pulling right from the video’s description). Nothing about Xiu Xiu is pretty and nothing about them is trying to be.
As a whole, Frank Beltrame keeps things energized. The standout “Veneficium” rings with angular melodies and an ominously energetic bass line: “Air above massive space / Air above massive space,” Stewart intones. The energy of the chorus gives way to punctual crashes like aluminum crushing full speed against brick. Even the closing track “Piña, Coconut & Cherry” ticks and winks with the same peculiarity. Bookending the record along with “Arp Omni,” it begins and ends with Stewart speak-singing, “A ballad rather than a rocker.” Twinkling synths put Frank Beltrame to sleep. Hush hush little album, that’s enough dancing and strife for one night.
Just as McDaid’s cakey face paint convinces us of a Goth Monica Geller, Xiu Xiu effortlessly shapeshifts their sound again and again with their authentic strangeness and multi-headed vision at base. 13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips is just the latest, most adept metamorphosis. They aren’t trying to prove anything beyond their own Xiu-Xiu-ness, and after twenty years of exploring the sound, Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo still find new directions to branch into, referencing both something you’ve probably never heard of and their very own strangeness. Xiu Xiu continues to pull me in and hold me close to the knives, I hope they never let go.