I See You

The result is the most eclectic, multidimensional, and ambitious album of The xx’s young career.

The payoff is the boldest work yet from a band famous for subtlety--the sound of the xx hitting the caps-lock key.

It continues to add up to something special. [No. 139, p.51]

The xx have undergone a gentle makeover, but what lies at their heart remains the same. Songs for lovers. Songs for the rejected. Songs for all of us.

Without sacrificing any of the confessional, emotionally rich material that made us love them in the first place, the band has dispensed with self-consciousness and proven their ability to expand upon previously held identities, thus cementing their continuing preeminence in the indie music world.

The xx have taken in all the experiences and lessons they have learned since their breakthrough and come up with their most adventurous and quietly uplifting release to date. It’s so good, it may even banish those January blues.

I See You is perhaps the bravest album of the band’s career, the one laden with the most changes, with the most prolonged journeys into the unexpected. Yet it also feels resolutely like The xx.

After eight years as a band, The xx still expertly know how to take you on an emotional joyride. [Jan-March 2017, p.68]

As an album, I See You has the eerily seamless wholeness of the self-titled debut, a smooth and polished object with no visible edges.

What makes The xx and I See You so enthralling, then, may not be a particular combination of lyrics and melodies, but the notion that there’s a secret life playing out here--one we may not be entirely privy to, but one that still rings with the sound of truth in all of its complexities.

Splashes of new musical colour correspond with a growing confidence and maturity in the songs themselves, but the overall mood remains intensely vulnerable.

The xx are too smart to get caught in that trap, extending past glories rather than copying them, finding new places for the spotlight to fall. [Mar 2017, p.109]

Swimming under the four-on-the-floors and blaring horns, the haunting vulnerability that defined The xx’s beginnings is as potent as ever on I See You. This time, it’s effortless.

I See You is still distinctly and deeply an xx album, but in the gap between albums the group has found a way to move unmistakably forward while still sounding like themselves.

The xx have always been concise pop songwriters, but now they seem interested in approaching the gates of pop nirvana.

On “xx” and “Coexist,” the xx was using sadness as a kind of shield; its stylish monotony kept you from regarding the players as real people open to real connection. Here, in contrast, the music’s dynamics make you feel closely involved in what they’re singing about--the highs as well as the lows. I See You presents a band willing to be seen.

Nitpicking aside, the risks they take on this album pay off: I See You is some of their most captivating music since their debut.

Say Something Loving pits its depiction of a relationship in crisis against a lovely, rolling, dubby rhythm track and samples of bouffant-haired 70s soft-rock duo Alessi. It’s an old trick, but, like the rest of I See You, it really works.

All three members are now capable of operating on a different standing, and when I See You strikes best, it’s when these level-ups lock limbs.

It's by taking these types of chances and stepping out from their established aesthetic that the xx bares their self-professed anxieties, moving themselves into an audacious new direction.

Ultimately, though, this is a more than solid album from a band who it was once assumed had given up. While nothing will compare to the band's exceedingly unattainable debut, it is refreshing to see the band learn from their mistakes on Coexist and create something new and intriguing, but still ultimately them.

Using samples for the first time, they have tweaked their sound in myriad ways, while still retaining the sense of proximity within spaciousness for which they are famous.

I See You may represent a sonic shift towards the light, but The Xx are still singing dark songs concerned with introspection, heartache and regret. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Good.

I See You [reveals] a more mature sound, one where the songwriting is top-notch and the intertwining vocals are more polished and mesmerizing than ever. [Feb 2017, p.82]

They are exciting precisely because they refuse to reveal everything about themselves, and because there is an ambiguity to be found in lyrics that come across as bluntly personal. It’s a talent that was present in their first two albums, only this time, they’ve let the light in a bit.

I See You is more nuanced and upbeat than their previous records but, perhaps shrewdly, it enhances their blueprint rather than completely redrawing it. [Feb 2017, p.91]

They find a balance with the old xx though. Fragility and self-doubt are still themes. Indeed, the highlight is Romy’s pensive, vulnerable ballad ‘Performance’.

The xx have expanded their horizons without sacrificing any of the emotional intimacy that makes them one of the most compelling acts around. [Feb 2017, p.22]

I See You is a pleasant enough listen, and in embracing Smith’s more hot-blooded production, the xx have avoided becoming stuck in a rut a second time. Yet like Sim and Madley-Croft in song after song, I See You still leaves me wanting something undefined: something more.

There is a sturdiness to the xx. The band’s innate talents for melody and texture, even when expressed in the wrong proportions, persist.

For the first time on record, the xx sound happy. Lyrics about growing and taking a chance, especially, resonate throughout "Dangerous," "Say Something Loving" and "I Dare You," further substantiating the already-palpable sense of ambition here.

It's ironic, though, because the xx have never been so unguarded, either emotionally or in their musical ambitions. The result is as haunting as ever.

Their extroversion is by no means a dead-end and does show ample potential, but analogous to stepping out into the light after a period of darkness, one must become accustomed to the surrounding brilliance. At the moment, The xx’s vision is mildly blurred with sunspots.