Xiu Xiu - Angel Guts: Red Classroom (Album Review)
Tuesday, 04 February 2014
Written by Ben Bland
Over the duration of Jamie Stewart’s Xiu Xiu project there have been few givens. Band members have come and gone, as have sonic hallmarks, but Stewart’s serially uncomfortable musical (and non-musical?) persona has remained fairly constant. A Xiu Xiu album not laden with despair and self-loathing would scarcely be a Xiu Xiu album at all, which perhaps explains the indifferent reaction to ‘Nina’, the muted Nina Simone tribute record Stewart put out last year.
In contrast to that release, an album that pushed Stewart’s ever melodramatic vocals into the foreground more than ever before, ‘Angel Guts: Red Classroom’ is one of Xiu Xiu’s most instrumentally engaging releases to date. Channelling avant-garde innovators like Coil, Einstürzende Neubauten and even Wolf Eyes throughout its 14 tracks, ‘Angel Guts…’ is classic Xiu Xiu in many ways, but is equally interpretable as a new take on the project’s chief goal: to offer thought-provoking and decidedly uneasy listening.
The harsh drones that bookend the album reveal a lot about it. It seeps into the soul, its obscenity and insanity frequently couched in terms that, while comprehensible at first, swiftly take on a far more sinister meaning.
In the past, especially on ‘Fabulous Muscles’, the 2004 record that will always be seen as Xiu Xiu’s best by many fans, Stewart has made accessibility a weapon. On ‘Angel Guts…’ it is his subtle incorporation of experimentalism that is equally dangerous.
There are few of the disquieting, jarring transitions that helped make early records like ‘Knife Play’ and ‘A Promise’ so mind-bendingly difficult to stomach. In their place are tracks that instead choose to overwhelm with a consistently dank, suffocating atmosphere.
Rest assured that Stewart’s lyrics have not got any more upbeat either. There are still bouts of complete lunacy - even the staunchest of Xiu Xiu fans will struggle to keep a completely straight face during Black Dick - but the overall picture is relentlessly bleak. Stewart is not exactly a lyrical genius, but he does have a knack for utterly demented wordplay, a knack that one suspects often comes alarmingly near to reflecting his frame of mind. The deranged shouting match that is Cinthya’s Unisex demonstrates this best of all as conflicting statements tumble, or rather leap, out of Stewart’s mouth with unnerving violence.
The overall impact of Stewart’s bandmate Angela Seo is, predictably, unclear, but the more cohesive sound of this album in comparison to recent Xiu Xiu efforts suggests her increasing prominence in the fold. After all, she has now been in the band almost as long as fan favourite Caralee McElroy was until she left in 2009. Tracks such as Stupid in the Dark and Botanica de Lost Angeles peak with a clarity not audible in the majority of the Xiu Xiu discography, without compromising their feverish intensity in the slightest.
Ultimately then, while ’Angel Guts: Red Classroom’ is an impressive album in many ways, it’s not quite as powerful or disorientating as the earliest Xiu Xiu material. But, it still packs one hell of a punch and Stewart remains one of music’s most compellingly original outsiders.
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