Pat's Posts: The XX – XX (Young Turks)

I still haven’t quite gotten my head around this one, but have found it drifting back on to my playlist, which means there’s something more than meets the eye. It’s the first album by a quartet of 20-year-olds, and it wants you to play it.

There’s a warmth and something very intimate about the sound and the subject matter of The XX’s album, eleven songs that spend their time discussing the ins and outs of sexual relationships, accompanied by a sound that’s not immediately identifiable.

The songs are handled by a girl/boy duo, which means they can sing lyrics that may (or may not) really pertain to the two of them and a (possibly imagined) relationship between them. The backing is a partly electronic, synth-laced concoction that pulses with warm bass and will respond well to turning the volume up high: somehow, the sparse nature of the recording really makes the sound field crystalise at a certain volume, and the recording itself is very nice, as well.

Though the sound obviously takes tips from a variety of sources in the recent history of British pop, it’s not reliant on jangly guitars, which really makes it sound fresh. It’s really a kind of soul album filtered through English psyches and with more than a touch of the introspective moodiness of ’80s bedsit groups like the Cocteau Twins and Durutti Column.

I like it. GARY STEEL

3.5 Stars (and possibly more when I’ve listened to it a dozen more times)