Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart has a novelist's eye for juicy details, and a poet's ability to wring impossible emotions out of the English language, finding black humor where there is usually horror, finding horror where there is usually apathy. The performances, led by Stewart's one-of-a-kind voice, are intense, virtuosic and painted in a spectrum of acoustic and electronic colors that one would be hard pressed to find equaled on any album. Make no mistake. No other Xiu Xiu album has ever been more approachable or communicative on a basic human level. What people sometimes fail to recognize is that Stewart is writing about all of us, not a freak writing about freakish things. He voices what the rest of us have a hard time voicing and the feelings in the music are ones that we can all relate to.