Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 18
  2. Negative: 0 out of 18
  1. Nobody else sounds like Xiu Xiu, and they've made themselves even more singular on this album.
  2. Xiu Xiu's music is all about discomfort, but Stewart and co. have become quite comfortable in this conceptual space, and are able to inhabit it like painters making wild, broad smears that intuitively cohere into a look that is distinctly theirs.
  3. Women as Lovers capitalizes on it as yet another bold and consistently satisfying release in Xiu Xiu’s discography.
  4. Uncut
    80
    Women As Lovers may be his best yet. [Mar 2008, p.107]
  5. It's Xiu Xiu's strength--as well as their weakness--to assault the listener with specificity, giving Women... a deeply voyeuristic sheen that can detract from the often thrilling musical invention at work here.
  6. Under The Radar
    80
    A newfound confidence is evident throughout, and for a band that deals exclusively with the darker hues of the emotional color wheel, Stewart and company appear comparatively comfortable, even if their music remains challenging.
  7. Rather than using art as a cloak, Stewart constructs an exoskeleton out of precious wordplay and florid arrangements--armor that makes him as clumsy as it does strong.
  8. 90
    Gratuitously avant saxophone squawking mars some of the disc's best moments, but Xiu Xiu's knack for grafting lush hooks onto noisy post-rock remains seductive.
  9. The Wire
    80
    These themes of anguish are not so much bleak as moving, for he always finds a way to inject his wry observations into the mix. [Feb 2008, p.54]
  10. Women as Lovers reveals itself as a nifty little album.
  11. Women As Lovers is a beautiful masturbation, and a little death for us all.
  12. With Women as Lovers they have created one of their more accessible and cohesive albums to date.
User Score
7.9

Generally favorable reviews- based on 14 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 14
  2. Negative: 1 out of 14
  1. josephd.
    Feb 1, 2008
    5
    I am extremely conflicted about this album. Artistic? Yes! A wonderful experiment? Most defiantly! A good album? I am not so sure. It takes I am extremely conflicted about this album. Artistic? Yes! A wonderful experiment? Most defiantly! A good album? I am not so sure. It takes something that this album just doesn Full Review »