Album Review: The xx, I See You

The caricature of the xx as tortured introverts was never entirely rooted in reality. However glum on stage, in person Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft could be warm and irreverent. They were ambitious for their band too, which rather undermined the idea they had stumbled into success and were horrified that their intricate goth-pop had been embraced by the masses.
The problem was you needed to interact with them in person to get a sense of this. In their music, they were undeniably chilly, grand and distant – closer to the faded outline of pop stars in an old photograph than to the real thing (“We’ve definitely come across as moody vampires,” Madley Croft told Vanity Fair recently). However, that cliche will surely crumble with their third album, a balmy epic four years in the plotting which sees the trio (which also includes producer and DJ Jamie Smith) confidently stepping outside the stereotypes that have come to define them.
You can tell something is up from the chirruping dubstep groove with which opening track ‘Dangerous’ announces itself. There follows 40 minutes of fluttering pop – dark in places, for sure – but lit through with a sense of possibility and powered by a jittery zeal. The record is further enhanced by the use of samples for the first time – a Smith specialty deployed with wit and inventiveness on ‘On Hold’, which utilises a snippet of Hall and Oates’ ‘I Can’t Go For That (Not Can Do’), and ‘Say Something Loving’, where he pinches a vocal from ’70s soft rockers the Alessi Brothers.
Already there’s been a minor backlash against this new sunnier xx, with several early reviews calling out the band for abandoning their baroque sensibilities. A kinder reading would be that, in their late 20s and with half a decade of success at their back, the xx have gained in confidence to the point where they feel able to stand fully formed before the world, unafraid of judgement. As coming out parties go, this one’s a lark and then some. Out Now