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Mar 4, 2011100It's hard to imagine their music getting much better. But it's not hard to imagine their lives getting much better. Which may be all their music needs.
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The xx have made a debut that sounds utterly flawless; it's the kind of album that bands take years to create.
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100The result is sexy like early Portishead and thoughtful like Young Marble Giants--a perfectly formed debut with a genuinely new sound way beyond the sum of identifiable forebears.
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90xx is a fantastically innovative album, and this band is exploring new territory.
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It's here and it's almost perfect.
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90For a debut album it's brilliantly realised and contains not an inch of flab across its 11 songs. Debut album of the year? It's beyond doubt.
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It's a perfectly executed ending for an album whose understated pleasures will surely amount to one of the year's most treasured releases.
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The xx recorded not only the year's best debut but also one of its best albums, period.
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Spare, swirling keyboards and gently urgent guitar pluckings anchor this minimalist masterpiece, allowing Romy Madley Croft's plaintive, laudanumlike vocals to tentatively soar above the albumwide ache that is her and Oliver Sim's (e)vocation.
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87It is so fully formed and thoughtful that it feels like three or four lesser, noisier records should have preceded it. The xx didn't need a gestation period, though xx is nuanced, quiet, and surprising enough that you might.
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The album's explication of its own interest in contrast and conversation is perhaps its greatest virtue.
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82The XX is for lovers and non-lovers alike, though even its surefire appeal I wouldn't call this a pop album. I would deem it sensual, musical in-out.
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It's strange that such a traditional set-up (drums, bass, keys, guitars, voices) has resulted in one of 2009's most unique debuts.
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80The results make for a chilling and captivating experience, with the unexpected musical flourishes in stop-start songs. [Sep 2009, p.104]
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80The finished result occupies land between Young Marble Giants' "Colossal Youth" and Tricky's "Maxinquaye": not the equal of either of those landmark albums, maybe, but certainly cut from the same cloth. [Sep 2009, p.89]
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While the band's subtlety and consistency threaten to work against them at times, XX is still a remarkable debut that rewards repeated listens and leaves listeners wanting more.
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80It's difficult to imagine 'xx' having quite the seismic impact of that opus [Arcade Fire's debut], but the album will win many friends for its beautifully haunting, understated charms.
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80As overwrought as the lyrics are, the songs have an attractive, dreamy, atmospheric quality that helps the London band avoid embarrassing teen melancholy. It's also surprisingly hypnotic.
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There is a lightness of touch at play that gives the XX a sophistication beyond their years. It probably means that their dream pop will become the ubiquitous dinner party album du jour.
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80What happens when you cross Mazzy Star with Sleater Kinney? These boy/girl newcomers have the answer.
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80Above all though, xx is a thoroughly cohesive, moving and accessible album.
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70As it is, with all their knobs set to downbeat, there's something restrained and knowing here that will trouble some newcomers. Still, there's very little on "xx" to suggest this band will end up on the compost heap.
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It's a gorgeous and dreamy feeling, and one that's easy to spend a lot of time in.
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In fairness to the XX, that song was one of Aaliyah's most languorous, its eroticism delivered in small, subtle kicks, but that does little to soften the airlessness of the XX's version. And it's that same fundamental reluctance to engage that suffocates this group's self-titled debut album, which has become a favorite of bloggers and the British.
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Their quest for a catchy chorus is often derailed by a love of hazy atmospherics, creating a soundtrack suited for little more than late-night navelgazing. [Fall 2009, p.72]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 75 out of 83
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Mixed: 4 out of 83
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Negative: 4 out of 83
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NickV.10Music these days is in essence utter shit. This is different.
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Epita5
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SteveL.7