Album promises mix of folk, goth and techno

Xiu Xiu takes on the American pastime of going over the top, being so immediately commercial and recognizable that the emotions expressed are undeniable. It's new album plays in this aesthetic, but with a grain of salt. Though the songs rush up from quiet, folky strumming beginnings to the unadulterated crescendos of techno beats and gizmo flailings, they all include a deconstructive element of what Lester Bangs once called "horrible noise." This punishes the passive listener, leaving only those with the heart and the stomach to deal with the ultimate pain that A Promise is dwelling in. \nAnd that promise -- it's the American Dream, as declared in Xiu Xiu's cover of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car," to "buy a big house and live in the suburbs." Like the movie the band stole its name from, "Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl," in which a young Chinese girl gets taken from her home, raped, taken advantage of and then dies, Stewart sees the betrayal in inherited ideals. Spliced with equal doses of folk, goth, trip-hop and crooning, Xiu Xiu is influenced from genres where truth and lie are not opposed, but co-exist secretly.