Xixa - The Code // Review
'Soaked in atmosphere, whammy, and tight musicianship'
On the off chance you wake up in the Arizona desert, skin blistered, throat parched. You will probably see Xixa wobble as a distant mirage soundtracking your desert blues as you sink into the sand and weep.
The hypnotizing magnetic desert-blues guitar riff bleeds out of the speakers and pulls you through Xixa's The Code. The 6-piece American/French unit are a magnificent beast. Gabriel Sullivan's vocals are sombre and raw, appearing as some sort of illegitimate love child of Marylin Manson and Leonard Cohen. It really settles and plants the mood of the song. Brian Lopez is a nice counterbalance to the aforementioned Sullivan, a melodic Latin flavored melody man masked in reverb. Instrumentally, Xixa are confident genre crossers, with an organ-like synth permeating the desert blues riff, a thick groovy bassline and two drummers rattling away like a train from the wild-west. The track is soaked in atmosphere, whammy, and tight musicianship. If Quinten Tarrinteno was to ever make a horror movie, he surely needs to discover this band first. It is quite simply Stella work and Stella production from the whole team.
I would highly recommend and we hope they come back to Hull soon.
5/5