Xiu Xiu have created a style that's recognizable enough to serve as a benchmark for similar bands that are less renowned or realized. The Dead Science is one such band, and if it's going too far to speculate that they're emulating Xiu Xiu, it's still useful to outline those familiar strokes, lay them over the Dead Science's ornate contours, and note where they diverge. The affinity's not imagined; Jamie Stewart declared the Dead Science's Sam Mickens one of his favorite guitarists on this very site, calling his playing "both cool and violent." It's an apt description of Mickens's atmospheric and elegantly discordant style, but it also fits Stewart's own. Their milieus are so closely aligned, it's safe to venture that if you're in the nay-saying camp vis-à-vis Xiu Xiu, you can stop reading this review right now: There's nothing for you here.
The immediately striking resemblance is between Stewart's and Mickens's vocals. You wouldn't necessarily mistake one for the other; Stewart's voice is throatier and more delicate where Mickens' is thinner, with an almost flinty edge. But these are relatively minute distinctions; to the casual listener, the two will scan as analogous because of their highly affected, relentlessly melodramatic, and falsetto-heavy mien. More precisely, Mickens inhabits about half of Stewart's vocal range: Eschewing the harsh dynamic shifts that instantly catapult Stewart from a reedy mewl to a hoarse shout, Mickens hunkers down in his breathy falsetto, occasionally recalling Shudder to Think's Craig Wedren when he lets it drop into a sweetly menacing purr. This consistency paints the album monochromatically, but achieves powerful effects on the more ephemeral songs. On "Sam Mickens' Dream", he sings, "I went to sleep/ Perchance to dream," his voice bending and quivering in a manner well-suited to the watery guitar strum that inches the song along. And on "The Future, Forever (Until You Die)", it seeps around the splintering chords and free-form percussion like tendrils of fog.
The Dead-Science-as-half-of-Xiu-Xiu tack is easy to continue from the vocals to the music-- were you to strip the bombastic synth workouts from Xiu Xiu's records, the brittle and burnished guitars that remained would be of a piece with the ones on Frost Giant, here augmented by Jherek Bischoff's upright bass and Nick Tamburro's restrained percussion. On a record full of diverging paths, the most memorable moments occur when all three surge as one: On "Drrrty Magneto", Mickens's guitar lilts through an ominous two-chord figure, then cascading drum rolls and a climbing bass line propel the song toward a shivering pulse. To portray the Dead Science as half of Xiu Xiu doesn't imply that they're only half as good; it simply means they've limited their palette, by choice or by necessity, to a less diverse assortment of hues. Whether this is negative or positive depends on how (and if) you like your nauseous grandeur-- crashing emphatically over your head, or insinuating sneakily under your skin.
