Pitchfork

We all live in pain. Maddening depression is as debilitating as cancer, it's just a question of which you're cursed to lose: Your mind or your body. Xiu Xiu operate on the precept that pain is relative, life is as meaningless as you make it, and that no matter how far you take it-- sex, drugs, rock and roll-- if you're still breathing you could have done more. These new New Romantics also face down the contradiction that tripped up the last generation: As long as you're alive, you're a liar.

In the last year of his life, Ian Curtis carefully orchestrated his suicide, penning increasingly resigned, morbid reflections on regret; he designed those lyrics to play from his grave, calling back "I told you so..." In making his death as melodramatic and emotionally volatile as possible, Curtis achieved immortality as the late twentieth century's inverted Werther. Do not expect so grandiose a statement from this collection of very sensitive young Americans, weeping over other peoples' graves.

Xiu Xiu are plugged into a morbidity only hinted at by lipstick Goths, a theatric, obnoxious self-obsession approaching the club-kids that ran amok in early-90s New York (though thankfully, they've yet to tackle couture). Bassist Cory McCulloch lost his mother some years ago, and was so shaken by it, he put a sticker on Xiu Xiu's first album announcing her death to the world. For anyone suspicious of that move, or as unimpressed by the formless Knife Play LP and Chapel of the Chimes EP-- the latter featuring an appallingly trite rendition of Joy Division's sacrosanct finale "Ceremony"-- A Promise delivers an intellectually and emotionally deafening demand for reconsideration. Constantly alternating between a shit-eating (I'm not even getting into the stories that circulate about this deviant) grin and a crazed stare, daring you to dare him to jump, singer Jamie Stewart tries to concoct the perfect lure: A know-it-all pedigree that's broad enough in its drama to draw in kids whose Daddys never understood.

There's a bit of misdirection in opening with "Sad Pony Guerrilla Girl", a warped take on Simon & Garfunkel pastiche that eventually breaks into the kind of sadomasochistic no-fi explosion anyone already familiar with Xiu Xiu would expect. I waited for Stewart, but he never screamed "THIS IS THE BEST VACATION EVER!" in rejoinder to his disappointed, childish freakout from Knife Play. Without such self-conscious distraction, I was free to appreciate "Sad Pony Guerrilla Girl" for its beautiful nylon progression, and much more evocative, directly disturbing lyrics: "Go on home/ Go home to your kids/ I'm not gonna be quiet and I'm gonna tell the whole block." If Todd Solondz hadn't already made Happiness, this song would've made the soundtrack for sure.

I didn't expect such captivating material, and I certainly didn't expect "Apistat Commander", a quivering opera of existential agony that swells from its breathless introduction to a distorted chorus sounding like the Magnetic Fields covering The Cure's "100 Years"; it's one of the most arresting pieces of experimental pop I've come across in years. A Promise is full of juxtaposed moments like this, glimpses of other records, lo-fi adaptations of Bowie's Berlin material or the Geinoh Yamashirogumi gamelan orchestra, best known for their work on the Akira soundtrack ("Blacks" pulls gently from the chorus of "Kaneda"). Stewart's beautiful, timid whisper is tripped up less often by his only-- but severely-- irritating quality: a present tense passion for checking himself, as if awareness of his ridiculous outbursts should excuse them.

Stewart cheapens the record greatly on its only terrible song, "Walnut House", where ponderous, forced minimalism is coated with retarded lyrics like "I am the dumbest bitch on the planet" and "My leather Daddy/ Dancing very near/ Like a sweetheart would/ Hurting my butthole like a sweetheart would." This kind of standup comic shock material only helps builds a bridge between Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Marilyn Manson, and those guys don't need much help.

A Promise generated most of its advance interest thanks to a cover of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car", which, given the group's chaotic pathos and impatience, seems like a daring idea on paper. With the increasing standardization of structure heard on the preceding eight tracks, it's not a huge surprise to find that Stewart and company have crafted a straight, sparsely acoustic version, backed by strings a la the record's opener. He chokes on his paper-thin, wavering vocals, and through the highly compressed microphone, you can hear him writhing uncomfortably in his chair. It's possible "Sad Pony Guerrilla Girl"'s subject matter reminded someone in the group of Chapman's folk-rock hybrid, but with his tremulous reading, I wonder if it wasn't a favorite of a friend or relative who's recently passed on.

The record's finale, "Ian Curtis Wishlist", creates a proper cushion for Xiu Xiu's most melodramatic moment, opening with ominous squelching that gives way to a funereal, two-note soundtrack loop over which Stewart draws from emotions within and around him, shamelessly quoting his friends. He finally screams: "I will take it too far! The twenty-hundred private loops making up my AAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Ian Curtis-- I can't believe I said it!-- wishlist!" Such unflinchingly paranoid, manic exclamations are extremely rare, even in the no-rules underground, though I guess you could point to Mecca Normal and Algebra Suicide (Lou Barlow released a similarly maniacal record in 1991, the Mysterious Sentridoh EP). Still, Xiu Xiu are unique in their enjoyment of linear mutilation, and their ability to fuse it with musical experimentation, rather than making it their raison d'\xEAtre. Jamie Stewart's level of self-obsession is either laughable or erotically voyeuristic; it's a question of how far you're willing to go.