OLIVER TSENG reviews Xiu Xiu’s latest release, 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto With Bison Horn Grips.
With influences spanning from industrial noise to avant-garde pop, 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto With Bison Horn Grips is a hard album to succinctly define. Throughout the record, Xiu Xiu draws from a vast musical palette, blending dissonant, jagged electronic textures with plodding rhythms and sharp riffs. There are echoes of darkwave, post-punk, techno, and even moments of twisted pop, all coming together in a sonic experience that is distinctly Xiu Xiu. Despite the abrasive and chaotic nature of many tracks, the album manages to craft moments accessible to an unfamiliar audience. The conventional builds, swells, and instrumentation of certain songs position 13” as Xiu Xiu’s poppiest album since FORGET seven years prior. FORGET, in turn, was the band’s first exploration of more structured, archetypal sounds since Dear God, IHate Myself, released seven years earlier. The cyclical return to more melodic elements makes 13” feel like a new chapter in the band’s ongoing musical experimentation and evolution, a process characteristic of music’s most intriguing acts.
Where many of founding member and vocalist Jamie Stewart’s lyrics on previous albums can read like a Dennis Cooper novel—dense with violent, raw imagery and a sense of deep emotional disturbance—13” shows more restraint wielding shock value. Classic Xiu Xiu imagery is still present of course; who else but Stewart could articulate lines like: “a decapitated fairy prince” and “you could wipe the excrement of a rainbow off into a rag” into some of the albums most interesting and beautiful tracks. Stewart’s lyricism
remains as cryptic and vulnerable as ever, weaving surreal narratives of violence, alienation, and queer love. Perhaps most distinctive about 13” is the moderation of Stewart’s idiosyncratic vocal delivery— typically alternating between whispers, cries, and manic declarations— which only rears its head in the final track. Instead, Stewart adopts a melodic approach for the majority of the album. If one of the motivations for the album was the “destruction of previous aesthetic notions”, it is certainly achieved to a degree here. However, this isn’t to say that 13” is conventionally conventional by any means: a Xiu Xiu album is still a Xiu Xiu album.
Standout tracks include the opener “Arp Omni”, a beautiful yet haunting foray into love and longing. Sonically reminiscent of older Xiu Xiu tracks like “Normal Love” and “The Wrong Thing”, Stewart explores the tension between idealisation and imperfection over the gentle swells of a violin and a synthesiser. Stewart reconciles their past traumas (“I have done almost nothing right / My entire adult life”), finding redemption or self-forgiveness through their connection with the other person (“but having dared to touch the fire with you / breaks the chains / Of my being nothing too”). There’s a sense of transformation—both in the speaker’s perception of the subject and their own self-worth, that sets the scene for the remainder of the album, and perhaps the future of Xiu Xiu.
Xiu Xiu’s flirtation with techno on “Maestro One Chord” is another strong point, and continues the transformation that occurred in “Arp Omni”. Throughout the track, a single uncompromising breakbeat is adorned by Stewart’s delivery of disjointed scenes depicting surreal chaos and violence, to which they remain “curious and unafraid”. In the face of existential absurdity, rebellious agency prevails. This sentiment is echoed in Stewart’s interview with The Quietus earlier this year, in which they discuss facing evil, on both a personal and global level, “without making it worse, without rolling over”.
The seventh track, T.D.F.T.W, may surprise long time Xiu Xiu fans, as its opening riff debuts a more established rock and roll meets psychedelia-inspired experimentation. Of course, sprinkled within the fuzzy riffs and licks are hallmark gashes of noise. Angela Seo’s reverb-laden backing vocals reinforce the increasingly frantic and jittery atmosphere as the song progresses, ensuring its relentless pace never lets up. If anyone was worried about the potential of Xiu Xiu playing it safe, they shouldn’t be. This teeter back towards a conventional style sounds truly fantastic.
The instrumental contributions of Angela Seo and David Kendrick also play a crucial role in defining the unique atmosphere of 13”. Seo’s contributions on keys, synths, and, of all things, sheet metal, add an eerie, dreamlike quality to the tracks, while Kendrick’s percussive work provides a solid, relentless anatomy through rhythm. Together, they enforce a distinct tension between structure and chaos, creating soundscapes that feel simultaneously intimate and overwhelming. This classic Xiu Xiu dynamic both unites their discography and keeps the listener constantly on edge, never quite sure where the next song will take them.
While 13″ may contain more accessible moments than some of Xiu Xiu’s past work, it remains rooted in their uncompromising ethos of challenging the listener and pushing the boundaries of sound and emotional expression. The blend of abrasive noise, fractured melodies, and haunting lyricism makes this album feel like a dark reflection on contemporary anxiety, alienation and longing, all wrapped in the aesthetic of a finely sharpened stiletto—beautiful, dangerous, and utterly unpredictable.
13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto With Bison Horn Grips is out today via Polyvinyl.
All images courtesy of Prescription PR.
