Xiu Xiu continues its existential journey into emo-cubism with Dear God, I Hate Myself, a title that an admiring little brother of Morrissey would come up with. Jamie Stewart, the root and trunk of the band, is the avant-Morrissey incarnation of this generation. His voice is less beautiful, his lyrics more frustrated and sometimes forced, but the cacophony harmonizes strangely well with sporadic math-rock timing that, on more appetizing tracks, lead to welcome synth-pop hooks.

Xiu Xiu found popular notoriety with 2004’s Fabulous Muscles, a seemingly unfiltered wellspring of stream-of-consciousness that managed to weird-out plenty a connoisseur of … “weird” things. Think I’m being rash with the labels? Check out the lyrics to “Fabulous Muscles (Mama Black Widow Version)” “Cremate me after you cum on my lips / Honey boy place my ashes in a vase / Beneath your work out bench.” But with the awkward and the bad came the sublime, often with Stewart’s dramatic octave shift in vocals not heard since John Jacob Niles. I don’t think I’ve ever heard music that more beautifully fits poetry than that of “Clowne Towne,” which utilized Asian percussive music, a vox, viola and violin. Xiu Xiu’s top-selling tracks on iTunes come from this album.

But with Xiu Xiu’s latest there is better consistency. No songs are so pretentious. At least half are catchy upon first listen, while others get better after hearing a few times. This relative symmetry started when Stewart’s cousin, Caralee McElroy, joined the band during the three albums between FM and Dear God. McElroy later went off with some band called Cold Cave, that awesome band that had to skip Florida because of the eastern seaboard’s stupid snow-in this February. Stewart continues to explore conflicting feelings about “never feeling normal,” from the Dear God’s title track, while defending his right to feel abnormal.

Dear God launches with “Gray Death,” a solid track featuring a melody that may be a bit too evocative of the chorus in Midnight Oil’s “The Dead Heart.” It’s basically note-for-note, but a pleasant melody nonetheless. With so much post-modern shenanigans in Stewart’s music, pleasant melodies are a plus. Chugging along, “Chocolate Makes You Happy” is a deceptive title about bulimia featuring chiptune blips, beeps and quirks. It’s a catchy tune, as if constructed from digital Lego pieces. Next, “Apple for a Brain” continues the Atari set, slowed down. It’s a fun triplet of songs to start out.

The next three are less fun, equally interesting, more along the lines of La Forêt, a subtle and brooding Xiu Xiu effort. “Hyunhye’s Theme” may be the most musically interesting song on the album, with an exotic play between finger-plucked strings that are absorbed into digital hums and dings, but without any hooks it’s a bit challenging. “Secret Hotel” picks up the pace and, if the rest of the album were more like the song, Xiu Xiu and Crystal Castles would be a dream team of electro-clash. It’s a short two-minute romp featuring all the emotional conflict you might expect from a song titled “Secret Hotel.” Buzzwords in the song are typical Xiu Xiu: “stupid,” “promise,” “choke,” “insane,” “Sweetheart,” “kill.” The album continues. Melodies neurotically shatter before fruition, rhythms misstep into new ones while computerized fill-in frills swirl, sometimes contemplative, sometimes at break-neck speed, often in the same song. This is not the comfort food of the music world. But it’s a worthwhile aside, some songs more palatable than others. It’s an elaboration of why we go beyond mainstream music in the first place.