Xiupill – Mythology Review
Frenzied rave electronics meet tender emotions on second LP Mythology, as genre-bending trio Xiupill teeter between the light and the dark.
Xiupill want you to know they are a boyband. We’re told this straight up in their Instagram bio. Newly released sophomore LP ‘Mythology’ is a melting pot of electronic sounds but shows off that distinctly pop sensibility at the Reykjavik-based group’s core. This electronic punk / experimental rap / avant-pop record won’t be winning billboard awards any time soon, but their affinity for a certain kind of catchy melody means the project isn’t fully alien to the mainstream.
This boyband ethos is clearest in the singles which deal in familiar pop themes of heartache and unrequited emotion. Impassioned vocals on ‘Feasting with Panthers’ sing ‘it’s a shame I can't break it off / pretend, you won't miss it at all’ over a three-chord guitar sample, while ‘Rope in the River’ laments ‘it's as if you never met me / isn't hate a form of love?’. The crooning delivery of these hooks (complete with occasional harmonising) nods to the silky peak-Timberlake sound of Y2K radio pop.
This streak in Xiupill’s music is more than a nostalgic pastiche, it provides an accessible anchor-point within the wider production which is restlessly shapeshifting. Ethereal synths punctuate the driving percussion which defines the instrumentals, from pummelling, gabber-infused kickdrums to jittery breakbeats. Moreso than hip-hop leaning debut ‘Pure Rockets’, this project leans into the history of UK-based dance music, such as on 2-step anthem ‘Watcha Mean’, the junglist drums on ‘It’s Not Enough’ and the IDM breakdown at the end of ‘Unused’. Xiupill piece together these elements into a striking and convincing whole.
The vocals on ‘Mythology’ also jump between wildly contrasting styles. The sentimental hooks are interwoven with aggressively shouted mantras and whispery rap sections. Each of these three vocal deliveries brings a distinctive mood to the record. The lovelorn hooks sing to the object of desire, while the Yung Lean-reminiscent spoken verses are more inward-focused and full of existential angst, like on ‘Mishima Style: ‘can’t keep track, just keep score / no sight, only blind / I’m so sore’. The shouted lines are often visceral and defiant affirmations of self, with echoes of Death Grips’ MC Ride.
The dramatic shifts between these different modes on a single track often provides a rich emotional pay-off, such as on ‘Praise 2 Be’ where lines of anxious concern (‘Don’t tell me what I really wanna know / just tell me if I’m standing too close’) give way to muscular self-possession (‘I won’t wait for my moment / I will take it from the hands of time’). Let’s call these three personas the lover, the melancholic and the fighter.
This triad of perspectives is suggested by the album’s cover, where the band’s members – Juan M. Melero, Oliver Devaney and Jón Múli – are shown in black and white. One sits shirtless on a chair clutching an arrow which pierces his chest, one is dressed in all black, and one stands in a buttoned shirt which looks like military uniform. The lover struck by cupid’s arrow, the melancholic draped in darkness and the fighter ready for combat.
‘Mythology’ is a tangled duel between these voices, and on the first half of the album it is largely doubt and despair that dominates. The lyrics are scared of death (‘throw a rope in the river / I don’t wanna drown’) and yet half in love with it: (‘for real I’m so ready to die now’). This preoccupation with death is framed through references to two of literature’s most famous suicides. ‘Made For This’ is built around a line - ‘dying is an art, like everything else’ - from Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Lady Lazarus’, and the track ‘Mishima Style’ channels the infamous Japanese novelist: ‘I’m gonna take my life / sun and steel / Mishima style’. Like many before them, Xiupill’s music circles the lure of death, considering ‘to be or not to be’ as an aesthetic concern. Typical boyband fodder, this is not.
In the second half of the record, there is a clear sense of stepping back from the brink. The shouted mantras speak increasingly of renewal, growth and self-belief. The track ‘It’s Not Enough’ captures this best. Feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy– ‘it’s raining in my room for ten days straight’ – are overcome by barked affirmations of agency and joy in spite of life’s fragility: ‘you only have yourself tonight, no-one is gonna grab your head now / and if my life’s gonna be a spark, it won’t last long but it will burn’. You feel alive from the sheer intensity of the line delivery and the frenzied percussion rattling around your skull.
As the raucous carnivalesque drums and horns of the closer kick in, it’s clear that a dark night of the soul is over. Xiupill’s warring impulses are reconciled as the shouted and sung vocals each repeat the track’s title: ‘I’m alive for the first time’. This is sunny, life-affirming pop, reimagined.