Fabulous Muscles Turns 20

Though I think a large percentage of my fellow critics would agree that Xiu Xiu’s 2004 album Fabulous Muscles — which turns 20 today — is their best, I’m not sure how much of my stance has been swayed by hearing it at 17 and soon finding it very important during the shittiest years of my life. The misery lit trappings were what sparked my curiosity at first, the lyrics about suicide and incest and war crimes and being cremated with cum on lips satisfying my adolescent taste for transgression, but after a while Xiu Xiu’s music started to become my personal palace of misery, a place where I could sympathize with someone else’s catharsis while keeping my own feelings tightly bottled.