13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips

Mixed by John Congleton and produced by Seo, 13” manages to lean closer to pop than any other album of their (at least since 2017’s Forget) while easily maintaining the band’s archetypal weirdness, love for experimentation and, above all else, pure viscerality.

Xiu Xiu’s music compels you to empathise even if you cannot fully relate to it. The poignant, pulsing curves of “Piña, Coconut & Cherry” bring this perspective into focus: “You must love me, love me, love me, you are mine, this is mine”. [Oct 2024, p.60]

13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips is one Xiu Xiu’s most immediate and, dare I say, poppy albums. It fulfils Stewart’s mission statement of making sad music you can dance to.

This is an album which doesn't reveal its secrets all at once, and instead invites you to spend time with it. [Nov 2024, p.101]

A shining, distorted, expertly constructed, open-ended record, that might be Xiu Xiu’s best.

File this one alongside Fabulous Muscles, Angel Guts: Red Classroom and Forget as one of Xiu Xiu’s most gratifying albums.

The songs reverberate stronger than those on the group’s more recent albums. Yet at the same time, Stiletto isn’t as epic as Girl with Basket of Fruit or Ignore Grief, and it’s not as varied as Fabulous Muscles. It feels at times like an experiment to imagine a different Xiu Xiu; one that find themselves on the top of year end lists, that are played in rock clubs, that reside in New York and wear shades. In this gesture, they’ve become more approachable, but also more distant.

A serrated synthesis of goth, industrial and synth-pop conducted at a histrionic intensity, 13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto… sometimes feels deliberately difficult. But it is also inspired enough to be worth the effort. [Dec 2024, p.39]