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- The Spirit of St. Louis Was it something in the water? Kraig Johnson talks about the unlikely rock incubator of the west metro and leading his own band. (Arts Feature)
- Celebrity, Skinned America's sweetheart Courtney Love: Dead at 40? (Music)
- Playing Doctor Smoking like Dre, rioting against junior high, singing in the parking lot (I'm All Ears)
- Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand (CD Review)
- Del Tha Funkee Homosapien: The Best of Del Tha Funkee Homosapien (The Elektra Years) (CD Review)
- Kanye West: College Dropout (CD Review)
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- Mountain Goats: We Shall All Be Healed (Feb 18, 2004)
- Habib Koité and Bamada (Feb 18, 2004)
- Weird War: If You Can't Beat 'Em, Bite 'Em (Feb 11, 2004)
- Mason Jennings: Use Your Voice (Feb 11, 2004)
- Dave Douglas: Strange Liberation (Feb 11, 2004)
- Future Wives: Dark Side of the Man EP (Feb 4, 2004)
- The Howard Dean Remixes (Feb 4, 2004)
- El-P: High Water (Mark) (Feb 4, 2004)
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Xiu Xiu: Fabulous Muscles
Fabulous Muscles
5RC
If you land in a combat zone, fuck shit up, then go home. Or so the art of war goes on Xiu Xiu's "Support Our Troops Oh! (Black Angels Oh!)," which crosses the Charlie-dodging tropics of Conrad's Heart of Darkness (Apocalypse Now edition) with the cardiac-arresting screeches of Père Ubu's epochal single of the same name. Accompanied by prose-poem lyrics from frontman Jamie Stewart ("You're a jock who was too stupid and too greedy," "Why should I care if you get killed?"), "Support Our Troops Oh!" is an abysmal song. Should Roger Ailes ever hear it (or of it, more accurately), O'Reilly and Co. would throw a patriotic fit, wrapping themselves in both Old Glory and Natalie Maines's rat tail.
This is exactly what Xiu Xiu--the world's biggest drama queens--want. Take their cover of New Order's "Ceremony" (from 2002's Chapel of the Chimes): Instead of summoning heartsick ennui, Stewart ups the Oscar cachet by shrieking each syllable with a tapioca-tongued delivery (think Rocky's Aaaaadriannnnnnnnn!). And on "Ian Curtis Wishlist" (from last year's A Promise), Stewart re-enacts Curtis's suicide with Southern debutante sighs and squeals.
By many accounts, Xiu Xiu's hysterical performances and arrangements result from the extraordinarily cursed lives they've spent dealing with suicide, molestation, and violence; Fabulous Muscles deals extensively with each issue to the point of exhaustion. Which makes the nonbiographical absurdism of the title track, the album's best song, somehow refreshing: "Cremate me after you cum on my lips/Honey boy place my ashes in a vase/Beneath your workout bench," Stewart warbles over an acoustic, major-chord progression. Still, there's so much emphasis on real-life catharsis throughout the album that it seems like Stewart and Co are using their difficult pasts to safeguard the band from criticism. "Fabulous Muscles was written on the heels of huge, huge upheveals [sic] and violent personal changes," a press release defends. By stressing their autobiographies more than their music, Xiu Xiu may lose fans who simply want a good record, not a memoir.
About Yancey Strickler
From the Archive
- A Frames: A Frames 2 (CD Review - Oct 8, 2003)
- Scene Not Heard Broken Social Scene's new album plays what the band members hear in their heads (Music - Sep 24, 2003)
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- Junior Senior: D-d-Don't Don't Stop the Beat (CD Review - Jul 2, 2003)
- Mono: One Step More And You Die (CD Review - May 21, 2003)
- Glass Candy: Love Love Love (CD Review - Apr 30, 2003)
- The Blood Brothers: Burn, Piano Island, Burn (CD Review - Apr 9, 2003)
- A.R.E. Weapons: A.R.E. Weapons (CD Review - Apr 2, 2003)
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