Since forming in 2002, Xiu Xiu has used extreme music to touch some of our most vulnerable and well-protected parts, whether concerning sexual trauma, childhood abuse, suicidal depression, or life lost. Even by their own tireless standards, Ignore Grief is a bleak album, stripping away the gothic quasi-pop that has occasionally provided a spoonful of sugar to leave a high-definition void whose clangs, whimpers, and screeches evoke a spectrum running from industrial techno (“Esquerita, Little Richard”) to opera (“Dracula Parrot, Moon Moth”). The paradox of such unrelenting darkness is that you leave feeling happy to be alive—a privilege that, according to band principals Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo, can’t be said about everyone who inspired it.