XIAN INTL, the new solo project from Alligator Indian’s Christian Church, make pop music to the umpth degree. New song “Patriarch Angel” sounds like “Lean On Me”—down to the lyrics—covered by Soft Cell; a conventional 80s pop jam pushed deep beneath bleak synth and death-march drums, turning it into anything other than conventional.
But it’s the minute details here, the sad, mute xylophone, the Yeezus-ish autotune and backbeat, the razorblade guitar texture beneath it all, that make the song. So, come for the pop-song fucked silly to its dark, eccentric heart, stay for the Sarah Silverman sampling outro.
