Ignore Grief - Xiu Xiu: Review

Xiu Xiu

is the long-running experimental music project fronted by Jamie Stewart. The band has long had a devout following in the critical underground, which was strengthened off the back of a run of acclaimed projects from 2016-2019. After releasing an album centered around collaborative efforts in 2021, the band is back with their 13th album, Ignore Grief.

Review by Lav:

In the years since I first gave a glowing review to Xiu Xiu's 2019 album Girl With Basket Of Fruit I've grown even fonder of one of the scariest albums I've ever heard and one of my favorite experimental releases of the entire 2010s. After OH NO, which felt like more of a themed project that saw Xiu Xiu collaborating with dozens of talented musicians but losing some of the conceptuality and uniquely haunting poise of their best work, I was excited for this to be a proper follow-up to Girl. What Ignore Grief actually does is less about demanding comparisons to its predecessors and more about challenging listeners in a whole new way. 

This album is dense, scary, shrill, and confrontational just like some of its darker predecessors, but in an entirely different way. Rather than blowing out your speakers with Jamie's screams crashing into a song or dense mixes of synths and drums blown out so severely with distortion it devolves into dissonant chaos, Ignore Grief is about space and isolation. Opening track The Real Chaos Cha Cha Cha has walls of distorted synths and ambient fuzz but they're so dark and distant it feels like they're bouncing off the walls of a colosseum. That's by design because the song's deeply haunting story of abusive relationships is told through monotone spoken word vocals which arrive in the mix even further obscured, but the instrumental gives the story space to be heard. 

This is sort of the defining style and sound of the record, pairing its unusually reserved vocal stylings with crushing noise and dense arrangements of drums and synths and occasionally even strings, all of which complement the narratives without stepping on their toes. 666 Photos Of Nothing works out lasting effects of trauma lyrically but very minimal instrumental contributions throughout. Similarly Tarsier, Tarsier, Tarsier, Tarsier continues the haunting sound of the record with distant slow chords and even what sounds like some field-recorded nature sounds. It's all in support of Jamie's tearful, somber singing and serves as a tour de force on mixing that you'd be stupid not to listen to through your best headphones. 

Lead single Maybae Baeby is still a big highlight with a composition that manages to continuously set up genuinely surprising confrontations throughout with the instrumental muscle to back them up. Though there's a number of highlights among the deep cuts my favorite is Brothel Creeper which has an impactful contrast of vicious distorted drums and plainly spoken fairy tale-style lyrics. It evokes a pretty visceral reaction in me that I enjoyed every single time. 

I'd be remised if I didn't shoutout two of my other favorite songs which also appear back to back Border Factory and Dracula Parrot, Moon Moth. The former kicks off with some metal whirring and metallic percussion that reminds me of some soundplay Matmos would deploy. The way it works in more whirring machinery tones throughout is immensely satisfying and it's one of my favorite sonic highlights on the album. Dracula Parrot is the only song on the album that relies primarily on orchestration deploying a chilling arrangement of strings. I think the lyrics are about persecution though I'll admit they're vague. My interpretation is that the lyrics work in the same short simple classifications by which people are isolated socially in the first place, which is a clever subversion to avoid being painfully literal. 

Occasionally I don't think the minimal presentation is in the record's best interest. Songs like Esquertia, Little Richard are begging for some sequences where Jamie's screaming pierces into the mix at just the right moment. The second single Pahrump also has moments that just feel so aimless. The stark sound of the record is often used in very interesting ways but I still come away from this song surprisingly under-stimulated despite it not even being the quietest or most minimal song here. 

Thankfully the album ends on a pretty satisfying note with For M. which leans into the record's sonic tropes even more with a wandering synth line that grabs me just in time for a crushing alarm-style distorted synth to crash in front of it. Even though the lyrics don't seem to piece together as cohesively as they do on some other songs here it's still a supremely scary listen whose high contrast loud and quiet moments work perfectly together. 

Ignore Grief is a challenging listen in a completely different way than Girl With Basket Of Fruit but I wouldn't hold that against it. The record stands up on its own merits with unique soundplay and horrifying results throughout. While I do have nitpicks with the project as some of that minimalism gives way to lulls and throughout the record I can't help but with I could hear a bit more of the sonic detail that the band clearly worked so hard on, there's no denying how much I enjoy the project. 

If Girl is intimidating like someone running at you with a knife, Grief is intimidating like a black hole. But neither its imposing amount of empty space nor the terrifying details that punctuate it will keep me from the call of its void. 8/10

For more experimental music check out my review of John Cale's MERCY here