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Fabulous Muscles more or less continues in the same vein as last year's Fag Patrol EP, reducing once prominent multi-instrumentalists Cory McCullough and Lauren Andrews to bit players. Stewart goes at it alone (or with minimal accompaniment) on half of the album's tracks, avoiding most of the indulgences that earmarked the first two Xiu Xiu releases as used record store trade-bait. The leaps taken with Fabulous Muscles owe everything to streamlined work habits and the continued emergence of a singular-and mesmerizingly awkward-voice.
Despite the record's narrower focus, Stewart remains committed to making things as ugly-sounding as possible: he buries his rich tenor under a mountain of warped effects and chases false leads with lengthy instrumental breakdowns and transient bursts of noise. And the openly gay, openly depressive Stewart continues to provoke with cruel entendres like ""I can't wait to tell you I punched your mommy in the chest"" on ""Nieces Pieces."" He claims to have written that song as a tribute to his sister's newborn child; maybe someday Oliver Sachs will be able to sort this all out.
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