Xiu Xiu: Dear God I Hate Myself

I have often tried to come up with a more eloquent way to describe Xiu Xiu’s music than “fucked up,” but that’s what I keep coming back to. The Bay Area band is difficult to pin down musically, combining elements of synth-pop, folk, modern classical, and other bits of weirdness into discomforting songs anchored by leader Jamie Stewart’s drama queen voice and morbid lyrics. There aren’t really any musical reference points for what they do; their closest counterpart is probably the director Todd Solondz, whose films tackle evisceratingly dark subjects with sick black humor, squirmy awkwardness, and empathy. Xiu Xiu have made their own visual equivalent, too, with the video for the title track of their new album, *Dear God, I Hate Myself*: New member Angela Seo repeatedly makes herself throw up in front of a static camera. It’s incredibly disturbing and repellent, but also forces the viewer/listener to confront what’s happening head-on. Like I said, fucked up.

As may be evident from the video, *Dear God, I Hate Myself* frequently deals with body image, which it does in typically unsparing detail. As is clearly evident from the album title, it does it with heaps of self-loathing. “Chocolate Makes You Happy” continues the bulimia theme, and curses life and death while synths buzz and brittle drum machines click. On the following track, “Apple for a Brain,” Stewart whimpers about how someone is “so hideous for a boy.”

 

Lyrically and musically, *Dear God, I Hate Myself* is not drastically different than previous Xiu Xiu albums. The band’s signature discordant synths and unorthodox song structures are here, as is Stewart’s unmistakable, histrionic voice. His singing is over-the-top, but necessarily so. Its confrontational nature turns what could be a depressing wallow in misery into a cathartic acceptance of misery. “I will never be happy, and I will never feel normal,” sings Stewart on the title track, which is dispiriting, but honest. The misery lifts for what may be the first time ever in a Xiu Xiu song on the New Order-inflected “This Too Shall Pass Away,” where Morrissey references help reassure that pain will eventually subside.