Review: ‘XXXXX’ by Arca

On the Venezuelan artist’s hotly anticipated follow-up to the Kick cycle, the diva takes a backseat for the darkness to shine through.

Written by Luna Harper

Image courtesy of XL Recordings / Kaan Ulgener

Alejandra Ghersi Rodríguez, better known as Arca, has always defied categorization. Straddling the popular and experimental, the sonic visionary occupies a unique position as an artist. Initially releasing rap-infused electronic projects like Stretch 2 and &&&&& in the early 2010s, Arca established a foothold on the avant-pop landscape by producing for singers like Björk and Kelela. In 2017, the Venezuelan producer’s self-titled record marked a shift in her trajectory, as she emerged from the shadows of pop icons to become one in her own right. Featuring vocals for the first time in her discography, Arca began a reclamation of identity that the Kick pentalogy of the early 2020s would continue to explore.

Despite a five-year hiatus since kiCK iiiii, Arca’s fame has continued to skyrocket. She’s taken the art world by storm in the years since the Kick cycle, with appearances at Coachella 2025 and Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” Tour, collaborations with the likes of Madonna and Addison Rae, and even ventures into modeling and visual art. Given Arca’s increasing flirtation with the mainstream, a poppier record would seem like the natural next step in her evolution. But as the ever-subversive producer put it, “i [sic] know that scale comes with industry but my heart told me to go experimental this era.”

XXXXX is exactly that and more. As her mononym has always implied, Arca doesn’t just construct worlds—she bridges musical blueprints to create entirely new realms. Her ninth album cycles through every sonic palette in her arsenal: deconstructed club, grime, and industrial hip-hop, among others. Mostly instrumental save for some murmurs and ad-libs, the record is an immaculate curation of noise. While it doesn’t deliver much on a narrative front, its wealth of sonic choices more than make up for it by inducing a visceral eargasm in the listener.

Like a glitchy incantation, pitched-up stutters of the words “Diva experimental FM” mark the opening track, “No End.” The motif, which reappears in subsequent songs, makes XXXXX feel like a DJ set from a surrealist fever dream. A deep sub-bass submerges Arca into darkness as she whispers, “The shadows, they speaketh.” The instrumental glissandos into “Willow,” which teleports across the sonic spectrum with its percussive arrangement of bell-like and 8-bit synths. But before listeners can settle into a groove, “Syncope” switches things up with its stroke-inducing rhythm and frenetic arpeggios, fit to soundtrack a high-speed chase.

In this way, XXXXX is just as unsettling as it is cathartic. Arca has referred to the project as both an “album” and a “mixtape,” which have respectively leaned more pop and experimental in her catalog. By blurring the line between these distinctions, she creates a record that feels at once alien and familiar. Fan-favorites “Taconeando” and “Fxck” are perhaps the best examples of this experimentation. “Fxck,” first teased on Instagram live in 2024, begins with a glitchy rhythm reminiscent of baile funk before exploding into bass stabs that nearly overtake Arca’s sex-positive, patricidal lyrics (“Come on, choke me harder / Kill the father, kill the father”). Meanwhile, “Taconeando” drips with inklings of Jersey club, weaving catchy ad-libs into its percussion as the diva purrs, “Yo sé, que tú quiere’ que me venga” (“I know that you want me to come”).

Photo courtesy of Saint aka Cassandra Antoniades

Naturally, with experimentation comes highs and lows. Although mixing and mastering engineer Gabriel Schuman previously worked with Arca on projects like “Aquamarine / Arcamarine,” their first album collaboration is full of muddled mixes. Many tracks on XXXXX are so packed with sound that their instruments have little room to breathe. Compared to the pop power of “Fxck” or the arresting electro-balladry of “Enraptured,” songs like “Heart” and “Everything” fail to cut through the noise. Their wobbly synths create unstructured walls of sound, making them feel more like interludes than distinctive songs of their own. Despite their experimental nature, “Heart” and “Everything” reveal the pitfalls of the streaming era’s quantity over quality mindset. The increasing pressure for artists to churn out material and see what sticks means not every song makes an impact. In the case of XXXXX, its 16-song tracklist leaves little space for each song to balance memorability with experimentation.

Still, the record salvages its lackluster mixes and cluttered tracklist thanks to Arca’s outstanding use of creative synthesis. “Grip” calls back to her self-titled record with its ethereal sirens, while the metallic screeches on “Raver” hark back to &&&&&. However, the record’s highs ironically reveal one of its greatest shortcomings: its lack of a singular cohesive identity. With the exception of highlights like “Fxck” and “Taconeando,” many tracks feel like throwaways from previous albums. The detuned violins and anthemic vocalizations of “Finisher” and “Throb” bring to mind the orchestral and cinematic swells of Xen, whereas the barely-there instrumental and pitched-up monologue of “No End” feels like this era’s answer to KICK ii’s opener, “Doña.” For an album that attempts to subvert expectations with its blend of the popular and the avant-garde, XXXXX sounds oddly familiar.

Even with its chaotic—and at times derivative—sound design, Arca’s latest album-mixtape shines brightest when the producer injects raw humanity into her brutalist sonics. Much like the melding of human and machine in XXXXX’s album cover, closing track “Sueño” envelops the artist with shimmering synths as she ear-splittingly screeches, “Stop, turn it off,” as if pleading directly with the listener. This resounding conclusion is Arca at her best: when she transforms the inorganic into something devastatingly real.

The immersive production of XXXXX invites listeners into Arca’s flow state like nothing else in her catalog. Despite the glaring flaws in her record’s instrumentals, the ever-evolving producer makes confrontational music that remains uncompromisingly true to her artistry. If Arca and the Kick albums introduced audiences to the multi-hyphenate as a singer-songwriter and nascent diva, then XXXXX brings her back to her roots as one of the most innovative producers of our generation.