So here we go...
The xx - Coexist (2012)
Kev B
My first journey through the IRB has been a somewhat of a
traumatic one for me.
I tried to download the album but when I inputted xx into the search engine well I tell you
I've never seen so many pages of porn.
Anyway, after a week of trawling through the filth trying to find
the goddam xx my computer crashed!
So Ian to the rescue and no, he did not remove the tit and fanny, but did provide the CD of Coexist.
So Monday morning driving to my workplace in Hessle, I played the
CD however by the time I had
listened to 7 tracks my want and wish was to drive straight past
work and off the Humber Bridge.
Such was the dour and repetitive beat /drone /dross that I was
listening to.
However, I have now listened to the album several times and been turned
completely around and thoroughly enjoyed the majority of the tracks, in particular Angels, Reunion and Fiction.
I cannot decide the origin of the tune/beat however can imagine the
steel drums been beaten
on the Caribbean islands.
70/100
Ian F
I used to
hate the dominance of verse / chorus / verse songs. Despite Dylan and the modernising minstrels
of the mid sixties the archaic format was still almost obligatory up until only
a couple of decades ago. If you were a
band who hoped to be heard on popular radio or even if your pretension was pitched
leftfield of pure pop of it was still almost de-rigeur. Dance culture and electronica changed much of
that.
I presume
the electronic pop band The xx aspire to be a chart act. They have the hooks. They will appeal to the young, and the middle
aged alike. They will especially appeal
to the couples in each of those groupings and even more so to the monied
middling classes of each age stratum.
They should therefore be big in the same way that the EBTG audience grew
large from behind Laura Ashley curtains.
Unfortunately,
although my better half seems to like Coexist I have a problem in that I miss
any kind of song structure. I hate to
admit but I miss proper choruses. The
hooks heard here are memorable but merely refrains: “Being In Love With you as I am”; “My heart is beating in a different way” and “we used to be closer than this” are powerful, and poignant, and
remain in the brain after just two or three plays but are lacking, as if
unfinished. Meanwhile the backing
although it fits perfectly seems more like soundtrack music. A soundtrack for a love affair? Maybe.
I think that is what The xx hope but it is too manufactured. I kept being drawn in but never
captured. I don’t know whether the
vocalising protagonists are in a relationship or merely in a band
together. This album, despite lyrically
exploring the traumas and travails of love doesn’t offer any clues. They act out their songs well but are they
electronica’s Burton and Taylor or merely Terry and June.
I imagine
the three parts of The xx got together to make a certain kind of record. An album of songs based on the traumas and
travails of romance. Yet, instead of
getting together to express themselves musically and lyrically they made an
album they thought would impress and sell and then went home to listen to
Metallica.
Still, I
don’t dislike this album. It infuriates
as much by what it doesn’t do as much as it animates me by what it does. During the records best bits there is
something special going on. Half way
through ‘Re-Union’ there’s a most affecting moment. A sudden change in tempo. The last minute and a half has a the sort of
muted, muffled, bass thud, your ears try to damp down to protect your mind
after you stumble into a club after a long night of excess. The female vocals “Did I see you, see me, in a new light,” complete
the murky, seedy, abstracted
scene. The end of that track syncs
perfectly into ‘Sunset’. The mood stays the same. The throbbing, out of it,
sound competes but then compliments the words “I saw you again it was like we’d never met”. And “when
I look into your eyes I see no surprise.”
These five minutes are certainly a highlights of this album. The rest is good but by no means essential
and I’m not totally convinced. Perhaps,
by the time of their third album when xx have learned a few more tricks, maybe
have a little more time and encouragement to work further on their tracks, and
write a couple of choruses – just to prove they can - , then I might
believe.
67/100
Dave C
Please keep in mind that all reviews are essentially about
the reviewer and how the item being reviewed chimes with their world view. So
if anything written here makes you want to kill me, don’t worry, it just means
you’ve got soul but, to clumsily extend the killer motif, you’re not a soldier.
(Unless of course you are a member of her majesty’s armed forces, in which
case, in addition to the desire, you probably possess the necessary skills and equipment
to kill, and can therefore leave the worrying to me)
Anyway, Co-exist by
The xx
I wish I could like this album more than I do. The eschewing
of extraneous instrumentation; linear sketch-like guitar lines subtly, sharply
picked but guitars seldom strummed; little respect for conventional song
structure; interesting use of sound textures and space; deep, deep bass and
changes of rhythm; the gentle enveloping of velveteen voices. There is much to
admire about their methods and the production skill, but its flaws are big
ones. The old line about “What you don’t play being as important as what you
do” is wrong. The space simply gives focus to what you do play and sing and the
less you play and sing the better it needs to be. Whilst much of what is here
is interesting, ultimately it lacks a real soul. Indeed I’ve never experienced
a sound more lacking in soul than the echoy beat on Swept Away and would have
gladly sacrificed a kidney for it to be replaced by someone hitting two bits of
wood together or kicking a roller shutter door (anything that somehow related to
the human condition would do). The (mostly) single word titles suggest that the
lyrics will offer small snapshots and outline sketches about the changing
status of the relationships, but the
words are disappointingly wan and uninspired, an example of speaking of
emotions rather than truly expressing them. A bit like the trained actor from
the animated series “Monkey Dust” Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim rely on the
sound of their voices, but actually fail to imbue them with real emotional
depth or sincerity. Their voices are the antithesis of those like Bill Callahan,
Lou Reed and Tom Waites. Perhaps they just haven’t lived enough yet or perhaps
I’m too old, but it to me it remains an attractive, unusual bud unbloomed.
Rich C
Well I will start by
saying I feel like I have lived and breathed this album over the last few
weeks. I have played it lots, both as background listening while working,
driving, doing other stuff etc and also a couple of serious "sit down and
really concentrate" sessions.
This is kinda unusual
for me as I always have a backlog of music to get through and hence tend to
play things once and then move on, but this little album has really got under
my skin, and deflected me from the pile of vinyl, CDs, downloads etc that are
looking at me pleadingly.
I did, however, hear a
track or 2 from this their latest release, while listening to Jo Wiley in the
car about a month ago. And found myself intrigued. Hence why I chose it for the
IRB album.
"My heart is
beating in a different way", " do you still believe in you and
me?" - these are lyrics with a depth of emotion that can have a deep
effect on the listener if you allow it to. But you do need to give it that time
and effort or it can seem somewhat ephemeral and not a little annoying in its
sameness of atmosphere throughout. In short, play it twice over the course of a
weekend with the volume up and the head thinking of nothing else. And it will
get to you.
So...I have just
written a review explaining how to listen to Coexist without mentioning much
about the music at all. I guess the other reviews may well do more of that.
What I will say is it is clearly written and performed by some musicians who
have a lot of original ideas about creating modern music about relationships,
and have the technical capability to put it across. In that sense they are
doing what the Young Marble Giants did, but in their own way. Well done to them.
70/100
Tony D
I've listened to the album 6 or 7 times now. Twice at the
gym, once whilst on a bike ride, once
whilst out walking and at least 2 or 3 times other than that.
Well the one thing I can say is, it's not a foot tapper!
From the opener "Angels" through to "our
song" that closed this dreamy assault on my eardrums, songs seemed to want
to get going at times (and god I was willing them to!) but never did. The start
of "Fiction" reminded me of the siouxie and the banshees song
"happy house". I had to play the start over and over to finally get
what it was that it reminded me of. Then low and behold on track 4, ("Try") I was transported back to Adam and the Ants!
"Ants invasion"
was the song in question from "kings of the wild frontier"
album. A couple more pretty nondescript
songs followed. Track 7 "missing" probably does exactly that! It does
remind me however of the Frankie goes to Hollywood song "power of
love" in places. The album finished
in a whimper with "our song".
For me this was very hard work. I wanted to enjoy but
found that I wasn't moved. It's an album that I probably won't listen to again
unless under duress.
30/100
Andy D
The first time I realised I liked this album is when I was
listening to something else. Walking home from licenced premises, I put my ipod
on shuffle and trudged onwards. Halfway through the journey, Fiction
came on, and I smiled to myself with the oddly happy sensation you hear the
beginning of a song you know you’re going to enjoy listening to.
I wasn’t so sure at first. It was obviously clever. Its
meticulous minimalism and discordancy were skilful, and the echoey way the
duets sounded as they were sung by two people urgently seeking one another at
opposite ends of a large, dark room were compelling. But does that make it any
good?
Eventually yes, when I peered through the soundscape towards the
lyrics: “the end comes to soon; like dreams of angels” in the lovelorn
lamenting of Angels, and “it felt like you really knew me; now it
feels like you see through me” in Sunset’s slightly embittered finale.
My favourite was Chained’s “Did I hold you too tight? Did I not let
enough light in?”
It wasn’t perfect. The steel drum sound of Reunion
jarred, and just occasionally you felt it was being a little too clever for its
own good. I particularly didn’t like Our Song, which ended the album
disappointingly. However it stuck to its guns. Halfway through I was wondering when
a change of speed or direction may appear – in fact, I probably hoped for one,
to break it up a little. That it didn’t yield to that temptation was typical of
an album that always seemed to know exactly what it wanted to do.
75/100
Well - all that gives The xx Coexist an average score of 62.5.
Next month's album, chosen by Kev B, is the new Madness album Oui, Oui, Si, Si, Ja, Ja, Da, Da. Which is released on 29th October. Looking forward to it.
