When a band like Xiu Xiu continually traverses through the tough terrain of the taboo, its fans may be forgiven if they become worn out. However, Xiu Xiu's new album "The Air Force" is a great effort by the band, which has been known for making a unique brand of melancholy electronic mish-mash dealing with controversial themes, which will keep supporters satisfied.
"The Air Force" contains dry, minimalist troughs of barely any noise, which build into intense, emotional cacophonies. The ringing bells and clanging noises that dominated on Xiu Xiu's "La Foret" (2005) are also prominent on this album, although not as overpowering. "The Air Force" is sharper and more complex than earlier works, partly due to the added instrumentation and layered expanses of sound that blanket many sections of this album. Each song has a multilayered and complex weave of electronic beats often mixed with various stringed instruments and a prominent double bass.
Furthermore, Jamie Stewart does not fail to bring back his sweet stew of innocent, ingenuous lyrics that lay alongside sexual, brutal and controversial subjects, like two exiled and forbidden lovers. Tiny syncopations drift through "The Pineapple Vs The Watermelon," the delicate beats lingering alongside references to suicide and depression.
Like prior albums, Stewart's lyrics do not disappoint, his voice wavering from barely audible whispers to husky, apathetic spoken word. The subject matter of the album includes rape, suicide, and abuse. It leaps over fences with childlike addresses of adult matters and burns the bridges of what humanity considers right and wrong.
Na've, innocent, and ambiguous, "Hello from Eau Claire," writtenn and composed by Caralee McElroy, bears comparison with some of the writings of e.e cummings: simple, childlike, but ringing with the vulnerable sadness of unrequited love. "Hello from Eau Claire" lets ambiguity and innocence mix and stands out very prominently on this album.
McElroy's vocals are musically accessible, but the subject matter is strange and slightly surreal. Her voice possesses a lilting ease; the clanging of glockenspiel and bells that back McElroy's lyrics work to substantiate her terrifyingly candid and somewhat sad lyrics.
"Boy Soprano" is another standout track, its first 19 seconds assaulting the listener like a rabid wolfhound lunging for the throat of his unfortunate victim, but it immediately jumps into a more accessible electronic melody with the delicate and wavering lyrics of Jamie Stewart soaring in like a bloody wound on your arm you have no recollection of receiving.
Later on, the song "Saint Pedro Glue Stick," the only purely instrumental song on the album, in addition to the shortest song, exists alternatively to other tracks in its naturalism. Screeching rings sound like the calls of insects or a yet undiscovered species of bird. Piano rings throughout, giving the song an eerie atonalism.
The final song, "Wig Master," contains Stewart's own spoken word, which seems an anticlimactic end to the album, but acts as a halfway house between the vicious reality of Xiu Xiu and the gilded reality of our conscious world. It is fitting to let this album drift away as a balloon would escape the hands of a crying child, which is exactly what Jamie Stewart lets happen.
"The Air Force" does not venture far from the path that prior Xiu Xiu albums traveled, but it is a treacherous and daunting path nonetheless. It is one that many never dare confront, however the ones that do are unlikely ever to abandon their devotion.
This album will not disappoint the avid Xiu Xiu listener, and its musical prowess and more melodic accessibility may bring the band many new fans. "The Air Force" is a wondrous and commendable album, and its new intricacies in musicality make it one of Xiu Xiu's best yet.
