halloween-type record review OH!

It's about Halloween (everything is spookier, can't you tell?), and I start thinking about scary music. Namely, bands like Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Suicide, early Art Ensemble, and, oh yes, Xiu Xiu. Ever since I heard A Promise, I've held Xiu Xiu in that highest regard of fright music. This ain't some Dr. Demento Monster Mash shit, but truly frightening tunes. An earful of their cover of "Fast Car" from that album is a good primer for the power of the double X. Fabulous Muscles, though, was a less scary album, albeit a still-great one. They'd moved towards a kind of freak-dancepunk; freak being the operative, as handclaps were replaced with lyrics about child molestation. Now their new album, La Foret, finds them treading a slightly less fruitful middle ground. The darkly (and I mean blacker than Dick Cheney's heart) humorous subject matter is still there, replete with references to sodomy and the Global War on Terror ("You smell like Fallujah"). But the album alternates between incredibly spacey pieces with little more than atmospheric instrumentation to full out horror-disco, without much transition. The contrast is a bit abrasive, and unlike most of the jars you get from a Xiu Xiu album, I don't think this is intentional. Unlike their previous two, La Foret fails somewhat as a larger piece; it seems a bit slap-dash, with even Jamie Stewart's normally intimate vocals far back in the mix. In all, a must-buy for Xiu Xiu fans like myself, but I'd stick with Fabulous Muscles for an introduction to the psychosis.