User Score
8.1

Universal acclaim- based on 35 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 28 out of 35
  2. Negative: 2 out of 35
Buy Now
Buy on

Review this album

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
  1. May 31, 2020
    3
    Overwrought, self-tortured naked emperor of the decade Jamie Stewart slides out his latest approximation of a Seventies acid trip that he'll never have, greasier than a young Trump hairdo and nonsensical as a Shaggs tribute album sung in Croatian. Let's-throw-this-in-too sound collages grate, yet it's the hipster melodrama of the shouted/goth-warbled, random-phrase vocals that make youOverwrought, self-tortured naked emperor of the decade Jamie Stewart slides out his latest approximation of a Seventies acid trip that he'll never have, greasier than a young Trump hairdo and nonsensical as a Shaggs tribute album sung in Croatian. Let's-throw-this-in-too sound collages grate, yet it's the hipster melodrama of the shouted/goth-warbled, random-phrase vocals that make you finally give up. "Smile and then don't!", he orders at the end of one "song" (like, no problem, dude), throws in an Alan Vega-esque backing track on the next one (on and off), then features a female voice listing bugs on the next. Surely this is the soundtrack to a documentary about The Last Man-Bun. It's very telling that the Xius' recent two-person cover of a ZZ Top song (and anything on the last album) wipes the floor with this mess. Focus, James, focus. Expand
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 11 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 11
  2. Negative: 1 out of 11
  1. The Wire
    Mar 7, 2019
    80
    The blithe ease with which it slips from unruly quasi-techno to Tony Conrad-like violin drone (“Pumpkin Attack On Mommy And Daddy”; “The Wrong Thing”) keeps this consistently diverting. [Mar 2019, p.62]
  2. Feb 26, 2019
    60
    Without the contextual anchor that Vo’s art gave to “Deforms,” Girl often gets lost in its own tormented vision. The album plays out like a series of crises, some real, some imaginary, some personal, others global. ... The better angels of Xiu Xiu’s nature are on display in the slow, scraping cello elegy “Amargi ve Moo” and in album closer “Normal Love,” the closest Girl gets to a legitimate pop song.
  3. Feb 22, 2019
    80
    There's nothing fetishistic, voyeuristic, or pathetically ambiguous here, more an outpouring of disgust that we seem to be in similarly horrendous times again. There are moments of beauty here too, of course, for that contrast has always been a hallmark of Jamie Stewart's songwriting, and what makes Xiu Xiu bleed where others merely pose.