Always

You know what you're in for when you put on a new Xiu Xiu album, and the band's latest is a well-executed sampler of the magnified pain and horror we've come to expect from them.

Jamie Stewart is definitely a bummer. A man of few positive affirmations, he continues on Xiu Xiu’s ninth studio album—the appropriately titled Always—to be recursive, dispirited, antagonized, and bitter. His wily charm is that he’s endearingly so. He opens old wounds with the grace of a jagged knife, and the…

It still seems odd to hear Xiu Xiu leader Jamie Stewart at the helm of pop song, as if his dark and unflinching worldview…

Much like a pungent stilton, this is difficult prospect to recommend or advise against.

Jamie Stewart and crew celebrated the tenth anniversary of Xiu Xiu's formation with Always, an album that sounds like the culmination of where the band has been and what they mean to their listeners.

Xiu Xiu have long existed in a nightmarish world, one where an overriding dichotomy of confusion and violence reign supreme.

Xiu Xiu 'Always' album review on Northern Transmissions.