Album Review: Xiu Xiu - Always

There's no better time than the present to take life by its stupid balls and do something that scares you a little bit. Go skydiving, call your parents, experiment with a weird fetish – better yet, start listening to Californian noise/art rockers Xiu Xiu. They're about as well known and accepted as choking yourself to get off, and better that your family walks in on you listening to music than strung up by your belt being made some masked beefcake's bitch.

Xiu Xiu are certainly trying to make it easier for you to get on board – Always is full-length number eight, and there's no question that it neatly sits alongside 2004's Fabulous Muscles in the Hall of Xiu Xiu Albums That Aren't Totally Alienating. Opener Hi is an easy introduction, its post-punk leanings and the relative restraint of usually melodramatic frontman Jamie Stewart easing listeners in with only intermittent glitches and deviations from the path of melodic agreeability. The uplifting chord progression and hushed, ethereal choral refrain on Joey's Song gives way to the cautious march of Beauty Towne, which itself gives way to the discordant meandering of Beauty Towne's second half. Now's a good time to make the call, because it's not getting any less strange from here.

Prepare yourself for disingenuous pop in tracks such as Honeysuckle, obligatory histrionics (I Luv Abortion, Gul Mudin, Factory Girl), melancholy ruminations (The Oldness) and frenetic, batshit-crazy experimentalism, best demonstrated by the closer, the wonderfully inaccessible Black Drum Machine.

Yes, they're a strange band, and Always is a demanding listen. But take a page from the fetishist handbook and take the leap. You might learn something about yourself – and if it scares you, all the better.