Willcoma

It’s tempting to say this is Xiu Xiu’s most solid release since their debut, 2002’s Knife Play, but it could be that it just feels more akin than this project has in a while to the acoustic instrumentation and serio-comic histrionic magic of that record.

All fetish and confection aside, Boy is a living, gasping, impassioned/dispassionate grapple with existence. It patiently yet economically moves through melody and rhythm to walking, dancing, convulsing, and fleshing the fuck out.

The austerity of …Jagged Rim of the Sky is a virtue. It’s lived-in and baroque and lovely without being glossy or overly precious.

If you let it work its magic, it will -- no matter how unfashionable or cloying it may seem at a glance. It’s music to get absorbed by.

As both The Dead Texan (Adam Wiltzie) and McBride's When the Detail Lost Its Freedom have shown in the interim, the two men of Stars Of The Lid know how to do this sort of music in a way that is as nurturing as it is rich in detail.

It has the capacity to make one feel like Jesus' Son's Fuckhead, listening to that lady sing outside her open bathroom window towards the end of the film. You feel almost intrusive, but the music's so arrestingly beautiful in its purity that you feel blessed to have eavesdropped.

As it is, Brocade just feels like a yawning misstep for an otherwise dependable shoegaze act.

Whereas Antony and The Johnsons was a stark, chilling affair that was arresting and perhaps a little disconcerting, this album is a shining beacon of hope and healing amidst ceaseless pangs of heartache and loss.

I'm not in love with every style employed on Let It Die. But I'm still confronted with some of the comeliest disco tracks around for millions of miles. Feist is a real deal artist and she can swing a purty tune to boot.