I have to say, I wasn’t planning on reviewing this album because I saw it all over Hype Machine and lots of blogs. When an album gets this much love, it doesn’t need the help of a midsize blog like mine. But they sent me a free review copy, and my policy is to listen to everything submitted and review it if I think that you, my readers, won’t go wrong dropping dollars on it.
London’s The xx have a terrible name—I assumed it would either be rave or hardcore—but a terrific sound. The band’s debut is a self-produced, highly original collection of moodie indie tunes, influenced by late 1980s R&B. It’s heavy on bass, at least musically, which provides a great counterpoint to lead singer and guitarist Romy Madley Croft’s breathy whisper and bassist/vocalist Oliver Sim’s regular-register, almost-spoken delivery. The vocals aren’t the stars here—it’s almost reversed: The vocals support the music. It’s not they’re bad singers, just understated—and the music is anything but a backdrop. Crisp basslines, hooks so light you barely know they’re there (until you hum them), laid-back percussion, and a variety of gentle sounds . . . I much prefer this kind of “real music” to the kind of cutesy electronica R&B that comes out of bands like Hot Chip. But, clearly, these bands are of a similar stripe.
You won’t be wasting your money here. Check it out.
Charn consists of four dudes who have known each other since childhood (and two them are brothers), and it shows. Anyone who has ever gotten together with childhood friends knows how easy it is to regress immediately to the aggressive-but-not-edgy days of prepubesence, the days when music was something to play air guitar to, to use as inspiration in mirror-poses and jump-on-the-bed sing-alongs.
