Fabulous Muscles
...After showing tremendous musical growth on last year's A Promise, Stewart has come frighteningly close to producing his masterwork-- an album that's as accessible as it is unconventionally affecting. On Fabulous Muscles, Stewart plays with dissonance without succumbing to it, contorting electronic drones, drum machine beats and his own haunting tenor into a propulsive and elegant record. The songs are often tremendously dense, but the combinations and contrast Stewart teases out of the mix are always immediate and striking. Indeed, the quality of the melodic and instrumental interplay here is right up there with many more straightforward pop bands, but Stewart manages to use it to an entirely different end. Detached from the safety and set form of traditional pop music, Fabulous Muscles is an album bursting with tension, tenderness, pain, and restraint-- concepts that have informed Xiu Xiu's music from the beginning, but which the band has never so deftly expressed.Part of what makes this record so powerful, though, is the fact that this darkness often lifts. On ''Clowne Towne'', Stewart sings, ''Your true self has become weak, alone, and annoying/ A true ridiculous dumbass,'' in an oddly sweet combination of fondness and frustration that fits perfectly into a disarmingly catchy song. ''Little Panda McElroy'', which first appeared on the same split EP as ''Fabulous Muscles'', remains one of the most poignant and complicated love songs I've ever heard. With lyrics like, ''I can stop wanting to kill myself.../ Because of you,'' this is about as far from your typical, rote and sterile love song as you can get. This version offers an even more moving musical exploration, as Stewart's breathy voice is subsumed by pulsing electronic drones into a single, insistent beat.Though there are many notable high points to Fabulous Muscles, its overwhelming consistency is what cements its place as Xiu Xiu's finest. The album does not contain a single hiccup or yawn-- no extraneous noise, no potentially offputting histrionics, no throwaways and no dull moments. Fabulous Muscles, like the best of Xiu Xiu's catalog, is challenging not because it's particularly dissonant or noisy, but rather because it addresses you in a manner that's categorically different from what you've come to expect from any kind of music-- pop, experimental or otherwise. With Fabulous Muscles, Jamie Stewart continues to explore and expand this mode of address, and in doing so has made an album that is profound, innovative, and absolutely vital. --PitchforkIt's very hard to write about Xiu Xiu's music, but that's mainly due to the fact that it's so damn hard to listen to. Nevertheless, one of the most important elements of being an artist is to remain completely true to yourself and your craft. Jamie Stewart, the only constant member of Xiu Xiu, could probably not agree more. He certainly doesn't lack the ability to express what's on his mind and in his heart. He is the master of being able to get to the absolute core of his feelings with every successive album he releases, regardless of how many listeners he leaves behind in the process. Stewart is someone who appears to not get enough out of life, or maybe he's just someone who's seen so much in his time that nothing affects him anymore. I'd imagine that in addition to being the most uncomfortable singer to listen to, he's probably the most jaded human being in existence. If Xiu Xiu's music isn't a testament to this, well... I'm not sure what else is.Fabulous Muscles, his newest album, begins slightly unpredictable with a soft and simple Casio-sounding keyboard on ''Crank Heart.'' This instrumentation is most likely a result of his time working with labelmate Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, who Stewart will be spending a bit of time with on the road this year. It insinuates that this album will be less abrasive than Xiu Xiu's previous work. It also stands as one of the more user-friendly songs of their catalogue, with its somewhat basic pop arrangement. ''I Luv the Valley Oh'' also starts fairly subdued and eventually unfolds into one of the finer tracks on the album. In a lot of ways, it's on par with his work on ''Suha.''''Little Panda McElroy'' doesn't do much to push the envelope, but is a song that really starts to promote the idea that this is a truly fantastic collection of work that Stewart has (once again) come up with. Things tend to get a little darker throughout the remainder of the album. Avid Xiu Xiu fans will appreciate this half of the album the most. The dialogue-only ''Support Our Troops (Black Angels Oh)'' is a collection of abstract electronic and feedback noises that provide a very unsettling mood upon its listener. One of the other tracks worth mentioning is the title track, ''Fabulous Muscles,'' which appeared on last year's split-release with the Jim Yoshi Pile-Up. It's a different version than before, but it remains signature Jamie Stewart with its incredibly perverted and decadent lyrics, of which I won't share here.Xiu Xiu isn't a gray band, in the sense that it's unfeasible to hear anyone declare them as being ''okay.'' You're either on board because you somehow relate to what you get out of their music, or you're one of the others who are running as quickly as possible to get away from its painfully harsh reality. Although I won't say it's the best album of their ever-growing catalogue, Fabulous Muscles contains some of the band's best songs since Knife Play. As with all other Xiu Xiu albums, one thing is for certain: Stewart doesn't hold back on discussing excruciating topics. So, when I say it's important to remain true to your art, look no further than Stewart to deliver the goods. He's continually offering some of the most artistically challenging music around, yet he somehow manages to maintain a good enough balance to reach some of the more mainstream-type listeners. There are hardly any other musicians alive that can leave as huge of an impact as this, and I believe that's what keeps us coming back. --Tiny Mix Tapes...Even more focused and direct than the previous album, Stewart describes Fabulous Muscles as being constructed around the theme of negative dominance, be it political, sexual, or emotional. Unlike several tracks on A Promise, where Stewart sounded a bit vague and oblique at times, here, he is completely unflinching, blunt even. He muses about his favorite five-year-old student, who was molested by his older brother (''Brian, growing boy stay stay stay awake is my prayer for you''). He divulges his family s grim history to his young niece (''I can t wait to tell you your grandpa made your mommy play stripper while your uncle watched''). He sings of physical abuse by a partner (''Break my face in / It was the kindest touch you ever gave''), as well as the mental strain of being stuck in a difficult relationship (''It feels retarded, I want you to like me''), and speaks from within the deepest, darkest depths of despair (''Your true self has become weak and alone and annoying and a true ridiculous dumb ass''). Stewart is going to let you know how he feels, and he s going to do it with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the skull.Musically, a Xiu Xiu album has never sounded richer. With the exception of a pair of acoustic tracks, the focus of Fabulous Muscles is more on an electric sound, with a heavy emphasis on synthesizers, and despite being a homemade, and typically minimalist, there's some striking musical depth here. ''Crank Heart'' may be built around a drum machine and synths, but Stewart and his cadre of guest musicians tear into the song with enough fire to rival that of post-punk legends Wire. ''Bunny Gamer (b)'' borders on IDM, with its stuttering, clicking beats, while ''Little Panda McElroy (b)'' keeps things minimal, with its rumbling bass and jarring synth chords. The tragic ''Brian the Vampire'' features a contrasting, almost playful synth arrangement, as if Stewart is trying to communicate more clearly to his child subject, but on the equally bleak ''Nieces Pieces (Boat Knife Version)'', Stewart sings over a mournful accompaniment by a trombone and harmonium...As dismal as this album may seem, when you hear Stewart sing, ''I can start listening, I can say Hi / I can feel something good,'' you can actually sense a tiny glimmer of hope, a pinhole sized light peeking out of the abyss. On ''Mike'', his elegy for his father, who committed suicide, Stewart lays his soul bare, confessing a remorseful son s darkest thoughts, ''I feel I am not nice because sometimes it is hard for me to think something happy about you except for that dad, I love you and will always, always miss you,'' adding with a wink, ''Pull my finger.'' Angry, desperate, and bleak, but this time coupled with a sense of hope and compassion, Fabulous Muscles is a major step forward for Jamie Stewart and Xiu Xiu. --Popmatters