Customer Reviews

Women As Lovers

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A very good follow-up to The Air Force. The expanded lineup works heavily in the band's favor. Xiu Xiu's early albums suffered a little by relying too heavily on MIDI sequencers. Women as Lovers has a much richer sound. "I do what I want, when I want" is a wonderful single, but I love "No friend oh!" and "You are pregnant you, you are dead".

For those who fell in love with Jamie's older songs such as "I Broke Up" and "Sad Pony Guerrilla Girl," you're quite aware of the "weird noises" in Xiu Xiu's music. "Women As Lovers" changes pace following the album "The Air Force" with adding MORE of the noises and obscurity. Despite the fact that I personally think of "The Air Force" to be more amicable than this album, I am like any other Xiu Xiu follower with the fact that I can certainly find it in me to love this album just as I have all the rest, particularly songs such as "F.T.W." and "I Do What I Want When I Want." There is definitely a classic style of Xiu Xiu that any Xiu Xiu fan will appreciate and love.

I've had a love-hate thing going with Xiu Xiu for a while now. When they actually play music, it's pretty cool, and I like a lot of their out-on-a-limb noisy experiments. The one thing I hate is Jamie Stewart's complete egomania. The guy basically thinks he can go up on stage and take a dump and people will worship him for it, and, to be honest, he's more or less right. This album is proof.

I saw these guys last night, performing most of this album, and it was an unmitigated disaster. Stewart's so full of himself that he insists on his gang of unfortunately misguided followers to listen to all of the boring dreck he churns out, thinking that adding a noise freakout or some wacky instrumentation can cover the fact that his songwriting talents are extremely uneven. Everyone left the show with a bitter taste in their mouth as Stewart and co. didn't speak a word on stage, spent forty-five minutes setting up without so much as a "Hello Chicago," refused to play favorites or an encore, and forced us to listen to some weird old guy reciting awful poetry. Even as most people filed out uncomfortably at the end (interestingly, swarming around the openers instead), there were still a few indie kids drunk on Xiu Xiu Kool-Aid, insisting that they just witnessed "art."

The problem with this album is that it's marketed exclusively to people who already think Xiu Xiu is brilliant and makes no attempt at outreach to anyone who doesn't already hold them in cultlike reverence. It's more of the same here: empty, repetitive nonsense, blending together over fourteen tracks so repellent and forgettable that they demand you to never listen to them again. I'm giving it two stars because, as always, there are a few good moments, and I can see how someone would like it. If this is your first experience with Xiu Xiu, or you're giving them a second try after not being completely bowled over: avoid like the plague. If you're a rabid fan: well, you already stopped reading and clicked "Not Helpful," didn't you?

Not terrible either, but just not inspiring. Yes there are some songs you'll want to listen to for a while, but it doesn't have the staying power of their previous albums.

irritating , non-melodic, cacophonic, dull, and really sophomoric. Don't bother - under pressure is the only track worht listening to.

This album is a showcase of all the things that I hate about Xiu Xiu, and none of the things that I love about them. It's noisy just for the heck of it, almost completely non-melodic, and basically a big spastic mess. If that's why you love Xiu Xiu, then feel free to disregard this review. But for those of us who like our music at least a LITTLE bit accessible, this one's a disaster, and a convincing reason to quit listening to the band. In my opinion, Xiu Xiu is one of those frustrating bands that are capable of great music but rarely deliver. As far as I'm concerned, they reached their peak with Fabulous Muscles, because that album at least had a handful of brilliant frantic-but-listenable songs. Women as Lovers has two, maybe three songs that I can tolerate from beginning to end, and the cover of Under Pressure is the only song I really like. I think I'm pretty much completely over the band at this point, except for the small body of great songs that I love from past albums.

I do appreciate that the band streamed the album online (however briefly), so that I had a chance to listen to the whole thing and pass on purchasing it.