Send "Xiu Xiu " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart has always had an air of ridiculousness about him. With a quavering sad-sack voice that comes off as a cross between Edwyn Collins and Robert Smith of the Cure, Stewart is always crooning about his existential misery as if he’s about to collapse into a convulsive, blubbering heap. Reasonably by this point in the group’s career, we should just accept it as a characteristic quirk of the band’s sound. Still, Xiu Xiu’s new album Dear God, I Hate Myself constantly begs the question: is this guy serious?Putting aside Stewart’s intentions for the moment, there is plenty of good music to be found on Xiu Xiu’s seventh studio album. Featuring the addition of new band member Angela Seo and frequent contributions by producer/Deerhoof member Greg Saunier, Dear God, I Hate Myself is based on pulsing rhythms and glitchy electronic textures that Xiu Xiu uses as a foundation from which to stage its tuneful melodramas. Keeping with Xiu Xiu’s equally arty/tweeish bent, four of the songs, including the title track, are primarily performed on a Nintendo DS gaming system. Despite the emphasis on this and other devices, the electronics are largely used as jarring noise to enhance the arrangements instead of carrying the hooks. These textures veer from intriguing to annoying. On “Secret Motel” it sounds like Stewart ran excitedly to the nearest keyboard in the studio and started pressing all the buttons to create random melodies. Regardless, Xiu Xiu’s jittery heart-on-the-sleeve approach to experimental pop is endearing and results in some great songs, such as “Chocolate Makes You Happy”, the plaintive “Hyunhey’s Theme”, and the bleak atmospherics of “House Sparrow”....full text |
| Bbc |
| Way back when, Kurt Cobain was denied an album title much like Xiu Xiu’s on the grounds of damaging sales. Mega-sales aren’t a problem for Jamie Stewart, however, who has in the past made being an Ian Curtis and Morrissey fan into an artform, while ensuring the music never becomes too easy on the ear. As ever, Stewart veers from acoustic singer-songwriter fare (albeit hyperbolically self-lacerating) to rough-edged electro-rock reminiscent of Joy Division on the cusp of becoming New Order (think also: early singles by The Associates, and The Human League before they became pop monstrosities). The opener, Gray Death, is an instant new favourite, with a strident refrain (“beat! Beat! Beat! Beat to death…”) and alternating solos for phased guitar and reverbed piano, all as massively catchy as Smashing Pumpkins, but with gritty production. Chocolate Makes You Happy maintains the pace, but brings in chirpily naïve keyboard lines much like The Cure undercutting their own epic-gothery with a Lovecats or The Walk. Thing is, Xiu Xiu have another three decades of sounds / apps / plug-ins to play with, meaning that the menagerie of robot animals frolicking in the background variously sound like entire pieces by Autechre or Matmos (that’d be new synth-player and programmer Angela Seo, and various members of Deerhoof guesting)....full text |
| Spin |
| "If you expect me to be outrageous / I will be extra outrageous," Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart promises at the start of his band's seventh studio album. True -- but after 2004's creepily tender Fabulous Muscles, you'd expect him to be pretty sometimes, too. And on tracks like "Chocolate Makes You Happy" and "Hyunhye's Theme," cello, harmonium, and delicate guitar coexist with Stewart's darker, squelchier impulses. But it's with his jarring mix of the banal and the brutal ("I will always be nicer to the cat / Than I will be to you") that Stewart shows his outrageous brilliance....full text |
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