Xiu Xiu - Chapel of the Chimes EP
(Absolutely Kosher)
Intensity. There, I said it. There's nothing wrong with that word. Fact is, I like my music to be a little intense. Overwrought, sure. Emotional, yeah, definitely. And Xiu Xiu is all of these things - they're a fractured new wave art-rock band with an emotionally crippled lead singer (I say this with love) whose songs all carry in them the hints that all might not be well in his mind. On their previous outing, the wonderful Knife Play, there were enough moments of scraping anxiety to put one's mind in a terminally worried state, but you could still dance to it! I mean, is there anything better than a song that's progressing at a normal pace breaking down in the middle with the impassioned screaming of DON'T FUCK WITH ME!! before resuming its course? I think not. I mean, Joy Division (the band that these guys are compared to the most) did it with ease, right? So why not Xiu Xiu?
Anyway, that's neither here nor there, as I don't want to talk about Knife Play in this review. Instead, I want to focus on their new EP, The Chapel of the Chimes, which is a pretty sweet little release. It all starts out well, with the double punch of "I Am the Centre of Your World" and "Jennifer Lopez (The Sweet Science Version)"—two of the band's strongest songs, in my opinion. Likewise, the last two tracks—including an abrasively tasty Joy Division cover—are fantastic. "King Earth, King Earth," especially, recalls the New Wave-by-way-of-No Wave anxiety and noisiness of other tracks; most noticeably Knife Play's highlights, "Hives Hives" and "I Broke Up."
It's the middle track that really lags, and that's a shame. "Ten-Thousand-Times-a-Minute" sounds like a failed attempt at their own sound, and that, in my mind, is fairly sad. I mean, I know they have better songs recorded (why they didn't choose to include the song "The Sad Cory-O-Grapher" from 5RC's great comp, If the Twenty-First Century Didn't Exist it Would Be Necessary To Invent It, completely boggles me). Nevertheless, I shouldn't complain: eighty percent of this record is great; having one bad track doesn't diminish that at all.
Nonetheless, Xiu Xiu's intensity can at times seem a little contrived. While everything harmonized on Knife Play perfectly (from the picture of the dead horse on the cover, to the screaming on some tracks, to the depressing comic on the inside, to the infamous sticker that the album was packaged with (if you don't know it, it's the one that goes, "when my mom died, I listened to...", then it lists all the bands that Xiu Xiu sound like), it all worked really well), Chapel of the Chimes has a cover that really makes me lurch. It's a simple line drawing of a hand holding an X-Acto knife to its wrist, but it all seems a bit too "I'm depressed, help me," and it worries me that this might become the band's routine. I mean, if it works, it's great, but it can't work forever. Nevertheless, this is a great release for fans and newcomers alike. Check it out.
|
