Xiu Xiu have traditionally been seen as niche enough for trendsetters to not feel any particular duty to enthuse about them; something which has allowed them to drift from one politely-received album to the next without much fuss. The critical emphasis has always lain primarily on respect for what the band are trying to achieve, rather than on overwhelming praise for the end result. This may be because the music itself sounds like a by-product. The patchwork nature of songs such as ‘I Luv The Valley Oh!’ certainly give this impression, as the band usually flit between ideas with little concession to continuity. Superficially at least, the same aural archetype would seem to be in place on Dear God… Their same basic sonic texture is indeed present. Most songs still consist of Jamie Stewart’s transvestite Kate Bush falsetto coupled with atonal strings and guitar, sometimes complimented by a sporadically farting saxophone.
However, this time round these elements are not employed wholly for the purposes of wilful obstruction. While this stands as a relief, it also signals a worrying trend. As here we find Xiu Xiu, if not courting, then certainly flashing the mainstream; in doing so they risk tempering that which distinguishes them from, say, a band like Cobra Starship, to whom they bear a cloying resemblance during the synth-heavy middle eight section in lead single ‘Gray Death’. The promotion of Jamie Stewart’s vocals intermittently provides a listening experience as abrasive as their normal understanding of the concept of melody. The title track itself shows how, in refusing to let its ostensibly ridiculous content be rendered ironic by Stewart’s over-earnest delivery, Xiu Xiu risk undermining the strides they have taken towards a more accomplished experimentalism.
Disarmingly accessible as it may be, Dear God… nevertheless still works best as a showcase for the band’s innate ability to craft songs that seemingly exist as urgent distillations of various forms of anxiety, most demonstrably on ‘Chocolate Makes You Happy’, a song that is simultaneously insistently upbeat while it passive-aggressively drums its fingers on the table.
