Xiu Xiu

Fabulous Muscles

If this is your band's most accessible album (probably a debatable statement but still), then you're either a madman or a genius. Conveniently, Jamie Stewart is both of these things.

Fabulous Muscles, like a good majority of Xiu Xiu's catalogue, is pretty much engineered to keep you on edge. It's dark, nihilistic, horrifying, and an experience in and of itself. It can range from... dare I say pop influenced?... songs such as Crank Heart and I Luv The Valley OH, but in a split second the tone ... read more

pros: intensely evocative, blunt and eclectic. Fabulous Muscles is a depressive, dense and noisy project that's more accessible than Xiu Xiu's previous records, A Promise (a dear favorite of mine from them) being one of them, whilst still remaining unconventionally brutal and harrowing in it's noisy and maniac production and anxious and disturbing lyrics; to categorize this in a genre would be an almost impossible task, since this borders on from Art Pop to Experimental Rock to Glitch Pop and ... read more

This is a weird fucking album, it's really creepy too but something about it really stuck with me. This album feels less like a collection of songs and more like an incredibly personal 37 minute long creative expression that just happens to be conveyed via the format of music. The tone of the album is constantly shifting, which does make it hard to fully immerse yourself in the music, but it certainly keeps things unpredictable and exciting. It's a very unconventional album and I think a good ... read more

More eerieness, more weirdness and more depression YAAAY!!! "Fabulous Muscles" is a pretty good entry point in their discography and yet another incredible Xiu Xiu album with great writing, unnerving atmosphere and more of Jamie Stewart's tortured vibrato.

Fav Tracks: Brian The Vampire, Support Our Troops OH!, I Luv The Valley OH!, Little Panda McElroy, Fabulous Muscles, Crank Heart, Mike

Least Fav Track: Nieces Pieces

Score:
9.5
OH!mazing