Xiu Xiu’s cathartic take on indie rock/electronica is like a freight train constructed of frank self-realizations, hurtling toward a derailment.
Stewart’s songs detail loneliness and sex and longing with white-hot accuracy, like his animal longing is wired straight into the mixing board. Levels bleed into the red from too much input.
The opening track on Xiu Xiu’s latest album Always, simply named “Hi”, seems at first to be part of the new wave revisionism that has come around again, until you listen beneath the beats. “If your bra is on fire, say Hi / If your bed is a living hell, say Hi, hi-hi, hi-hi” like a nerve-damaged Statue of Liberty in a polluted harbor, welcoming all damaged souls into its arms. Things get hard to take on the Artaudian exhortations of “I Luv Abortion,” offering up the harshest truths because sometimes there is nothing else to say.
It’s not all fire and slit wrists. In fact, each song is composed of equal parts of beauty and pain, culminating in the mini-chamber opera of “Black Drum Machine” with Stewart’s choked croon devolving into shrieks and a cataclysm of noise, then falling silent like a satellite burning up in the atmosphere, waving “hi” as it streaks by.
Xiu Xiu, Yamatanka, Sonic Titan, and Father Murphy perform an early show (doors open at 7 p.m.) at One Eyed Jacks, June 7. $12.