Since his early aughts introduction, Xiu Xiu main man Jamie Stewart has offered the world a seemingly unending stream of infuriating material. His songs and albums are frustrating not because they are bad in a straightforward manner, but because they hint at being somehow brilliant, just obscured with a “difficult” sheen. However, Stewart’s unique electronic and industrial sound effects, post-punk guitars and infrequent explosions of experimental pop are simply not enough to disguise how indulgent, artificial and downright unpleasant the majority of his output is.
Women as Lovers is Xiu Xiu’s sixth full-length, and has gained them some attention due to the simultaneous launch of an online video magazine of the same name, a duet with Angels of Light/Swans singer Michael Gira and an alleged return to more “approachable” sounds. Sadly, the misses still far outweigh the hits here.
“I Do What I Want, When I Want” opens the album on a promising (but predictable) note, with Stewart softly intoning over a repetitive musical backdrop until it all dissolves into an almost-catchy tune amidst other clanks and clatters. The aforementioned duet with Gira is a fun and fairly faithful cover of the Queen and David Bowie classic “Under Pressure,” and clearly signals a nod of respect to their influences. “You are Pregnant You, You are Dead” is a rocked-up mess of riffs and “No Friend Oh!” has Stewart singing over skittering drums and a vibrant horn-blast hook.
Nonetheless, with 14 songs, a few puffs of perfume are still overwhelmed by a cloud of stench. “In Lust You Can Hear the Axe Fall” attempts to amp up the excitement with stabbing strings and histrionics, but instead comes across as completely affected. “Black Keyboard” and “The Leash” are both aimless exercises in audio torture. The Dan Deacon-inspired vocal tweaks are the only memorable element of the “political” track “Guantanamo Canto,” and along with a song about kid soldiers in Africa (“Child at Arms”) and one about the apathetic majority (“White Nerd”), the remainder of the album finds Stewart simply wallowing in his holier-than-thou nightmare world. Dark, “challenging” (relying on overwrought shock tactics) and more often than not, incredibly boring, with Women as Lovers, Xiu Xiu have done it again.
