"musically, this record was the equivalent to discovering an abandoned spaceship in a backyard to me" -Ground Control To Uncle Tom 3 years ago top comment from the exmilitary comment section
I just listened to 3 songs and this has got to be the least mainstream album I’ve heard in a minute. You’d never see the average person going through the radio and stopping to listen to this lmao
@@LukeSnywalker523 I'd say Mary Turner wins for me. Knowing it's based on something that happened 100 years ago really fucks me up. As a non american, it's something I didn't have much knowledge of, and it was sickening to investigate more about it.
Such a disturbing album. This might be their best, although Knife Play is probably tied. I love how they just change their sound every album while still remaining Xiu Xiu with the awkward vibrato and depressive and suicidal lyrics. This album was a lot more noise focused than that album which gives it a completely cutting-edge sound.
Wow I heard the album is good, but when you ripped off the yellow flannel for the red one to reveal itself only to shout “NOT GOOD” I almost had a heart attack
fanny tooth nana if he reviewed xiu xiu for classics week i think he’d review fabulous muscles but you could definitely make a strong argument for a promise
the way it portrays the brutal murder, it's so different from what you usually hear from songs about murder - it's not mournful or poetic or ghostly. It seriously feels like absolute scorching insanity - so much fear and terror and confusion, and then finally anger. It doesn't sound like he's describing a brutal event from the long ago past, it's like he describing it in the moment.
I read the description of this album on Bandcamp and read about Mary Turner and I was incredibly disturbed...then I listened to the actual song and now I want to curl up in a corner and cry
10/10. Xiu Xiu are masters of making fucked up and tortured music while not being so abrasive that it becomes suffocating or day-ruining to listen to. Their more accessible pop-oriented material is excellent, too.
Here's a trick for listening to ANY difficult or less accessible music for the first time: Pretend you're in a car (or better - listen in your car). Imagine the music is the sound of the engine. Pinging, popping, screeching, banging. As long as the music has some rhythm, you'll get a whole different idea of what's going on in a track. Some things that seem like chaotic noise can seem just propulsive or sometimes even just kinda boingy and quaint.
i cant even call this music to be honest.. it felt like i was listening to events taking place in a movie.. like Scisssssssssors for example...batshit insane.. pretty awesome. but wow wtf. Ice cream truck sounds like the downward spirals of a mans psyche.
lmao that’s the point that’s why “girl with basket of fruit” is a random title and on the next track “it comes out as a joke” signifies the ramblings of a mad man
@@dulin5531 "Girl With Basket of Fruit" isn't a random title though, but a play on the title of one of Caravaggio's most famous paintings and a direct allusion to one of the main themes of the album: the difference in portrayal between male and female innocence and suffering. Not to say that there aren't more themes or that Xiu Xiu's lyrics aren't often surreal and seemingly arbitrary, but that doesn't mean there isn't authorial intent in those kind of details or that they're not supposed to be interpreted.
I mean what were you expecting? Anthony already described how freakish and chaotic and noisy the album is, that should've given you at least a little bit of expectation
Favorite album of the year. Brought me some of the most difficult yet rewarding music I’ve ever heard. Mary Turner has become one of my favorite songs. Such a hard-hitting and terrifying experience.
𝓛𝓸𝓼𝓽 𝓲𝓷 𝓗𝓮𝓪𝓿𝓮𝓷 there’s no subtlety, no poetry, no nuance and no sense of metaphor or allegorical subject. It’s just caveman speak “Masculinity is bad and you should cry!” “Muh Danny Nedelko is an immigrant he’s nice his name is spelt..” etc. And the way the guy speaks, he’s like a walking huffington post. It’s not bad music, I love the crunch of the guitars and the bluntness of them but I can’t get past that guy
@@Forestgravy90 the bluntness is part of the band's aesthetic. it's not a lack of understanding metaphor or allegory, it's an explicit aesthetic rejection of those things. the lyrics are crunchy and unsubtle and confrontational just like the instrumentals and the singing is crunchy and unsubtle and confrontational.
there's forthrightness and aggression and bluntness and then there's a lack of creativity and relaying of basic messages from echo-chambered silly junkie groups. Seen the guy interviewed and he came across very poorly to me@@jbkjbk1999
What you said about someone who has never reflected on our country's history of racism and hatred being thoroughly unnerved and disturbed after hearing "Mary Turner Mary Turner" could not have been more accurate. I honestly do not know how to feel anymore after hearing that and learning the history behind it.
Xiu Xiu dropping 3 incredible projects that are completely different from one another back to back has gotta be a special thing. This one in particular twisted my insides.
This album is the musical equivalent of when you are peaking on a 10 strip of acid and you finally force yourself get up and walk to the bathroom to go pee
the greatest boy I’d let Jamie use me like a hand puppet in a church production of The Passion play, or like the crusty gym sock I kept under my bed in high school... WOOF! 🤤😆
0:54 idk what you're talking about, percussion has always been a big focus in xiu xiu's music, they've always had interesting percussion, and their first album was noted by a lot of critics for its gamelan percussion.
Just heard this album for the first time and tuned in to hear Anthony's thougts on "Mary Turner Mary Turner" and he didn't disappoint. This album's up there with Lingua Ignota and Nine Inch Nails as the most harrowing I've ever heard, and honestly this one's scarier than 99 percent of horror movies I've ever seen. What a landmark achievement.
The first timeI heard this I knew it would come. It would come and save me from my misery the blandness of not knowing what true weird shit exists out there and without the manic sounds of stings shooting from the top of the door. Yeah it was a pretty good album.
It's fun to see your reviews of xiu xiu. they are really a hit or miss band for you, which i like, other bands you only seem to be in a set range of scores but xiu xiu is very sporadic for you it seems.
Honestly, I would love to give this a listen, but I tried to listen to one of their albums a while back, and I only got four tracks in before I had to shut it off. It fucked me up so bad that I got physically sick. So yeah, I'm gonna pass on this one.
Ive been commenting on every review sonce this album dropped so I could hear you love it as much as i did. I forgot to mention this but its fucking amazing how Eugene Robinson, who sounded like a damn madman all over the last Oxbow release is on this thing, so perfect.
Fuck yeah!! I hadn't heard Xiu-Xiu before but damn, after you mentioned them a few times on the other channel and after this vid I had to listen. Instant love! And hell yeeeeah their tour stops in Stockholm!
I knew tis would be a 9. Unfortunately, this album isn't for me. I've given it multiple listens and I understand and appreciate how sonically unique it is but the lead singer motorboating the microphone was not something I ever wanted to hear
I havent been able to stop listening to Pumpkin Attack on Mommy and Daddy since i first heard it. Been listening to it like 3 times a day for a month now. After being a Fabulous Muscles listener for years, im stoked to get deeper into Xiu Xiu
Al Windsor agreed. The really absurd lyrics one line after another and the storytelling like structure of the songs especially remind me of Bish Bosch.
I should like this album in theory, harrowing loud noisey industrial music that tackles fucked up things in a cryptic way and will leave you emotionally scarred? Consider me on board. Yet... It just doesn't click, it just sounds like a Clown babbling over incoherent noise and I unironically listen to Merzbow to calm myself down. And the singer sounds deranged but in a bad way, I get that's the point but it works against the album imo, it just make me laugh, then annoyed at the vocals and lyrics too.
