Review Roundup: The xx

"Their list of influences is potent but imperfect: Young Marble Giants (too shaggy and heavy-lidded); Japan (too robust and theatric); Glass Candy (too quick and glammy). Without one gimmick song they'll never be able to reproduce, without an alternate agenda, without a set-in-stone hip influence, the xx start to sound like a real actual band, even if, after dozens of listens, it's nearly incomprehensible to think that a group so fresh-faced produced xx."
-pitchfork, 8.7/10

"Though their cover art depicts only the starkness of white on black, xx is not an album of strict dichotomies. The xx deign (of course there’s a tinge of haughtiness involved) instead to operate dialectically: their debut is about an involution of opposition, the interplay of contradictions, about young Londoners proposing that between the ideas herein lies communication, not friction—yes, there’s a sinewy, nearly palpable tension in the delivery, but then reconciliation in full was never really their destination anyway. Its conversational nature distends beyond the aesthetic and thematic into that obscure realm of the contextual, where reception—felicitously divisive—quickly becomes the inevitable fracas between sensation and backlash." -cokemachineglow, 86/100

"There’s a singular bleakness to their debut album, which sounds like it’s been made by moonlight by a grim team of introverts, half-drunk and lonely. Listening to it with the level of attention it demands gives you a sickly jealous feeling at the intimacy, like reading other people’s love letters. It’s a waste of time looking for big hooks or moments of release, but absorbed properly this becomes quietly transcendent. Somehow, its songs are welcoming despite their insularity." -drowned in sound, 9/10

"From the first notes, xx has the feel of something special. The self-explanatory Intro sets the stall out with producer/drum programmer Jamie Smith fashioning a Timbaland-esque beat that creeps in unannounced below an off-kilter riff." -musicOMH, 4.5/5

"The XX, four kids from the dubstep heartland of south London, have quietly set up an emotional squat in those spaces, with bedsit-delicate love songs. It’s strange that such a traditional set-up (drums, bass, keys, guitars, voices) has resulted in one of 2009’s most unique debuts. The praise can be laid at the door of the band themselves: synths-and-beats man Jamie Smith produced the album himself and they draw together eclectic materials from avant-garde hip-hop to R&B to pure pop." -NME, 8/10

"this has nothing to do with r&b, these are outtakes from seventeen seconds. you morons are coughing up press release chest-thumping as if they were facts. r&b has beats and melodies and people that can sing. you know that part in dreamgirls when it shows the white people singing the soul record turned into sunshine pop? that's the xx except instead of normal white people it's incredibly impossibly unbelievably pale people." -me, zzz/xx


btw i listened to the first half of it