karmapoliceman

Some of the songs are not that great, but like VCR quite a lot, if you guys have heard that one. I think this band is alright - not worthy of the huge buzz they're getting, but alright.

Charlemagne

I liked it on the first and second listen, I didn't feel it was too dull , which is usually how I feel about album's like this one. Heart Skipped A Beat, is an especially great song.

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Charlemagne had eyes like a lover, but last winter there was weather and his eyes they iced right over.

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iceman12321

really enjoy tracks like crystalized and islands, but most of the tracks don't have enough going on to keep me interested.

Thursday Next

Well since I just found this site and I'm sitting here in my XX t-shirt, what better place for my first post?

They're an odd band. I first saw them at the Camden Crawl, upstairs in the Enterprise pub which was tiny. They kept fussing about the sound levels, all their songs sound like Chris Issak's Wicked Game and I thought they were dull as anything.

But they've grown on me a lot. The album is very good. There's something hypnotic about their music. I saw them again at Leeds festival the other week (where I got the (free) t-shirt) and they were probably the best band I saw there. It took me a while to get them, but I really like them now.

(Hi, by the way )

adidasss

Haha...welcome. Hope you like it here...(:

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Thursday Next

Is it just me or...

DeepDishBedPan

The XX are nothing special. I enjoyed the album, their mellow and I'm into that sometimes, but everything is close enough to being the same that you end up just choosing a couple of the "superior" songs...for me, track 10 (whatever it was called).

Again, nothing against The XX, but they're hardly worth screaming about.

Jason86

They're not amazing or anything, but their album is pretty good, they're probably best suited to a certain mood.

dollarsandcents

I've just got the album today and I really like it. Really nice sound, simple but effective. Can't put my finger on why I like it so much as describing them would probably make them sound quite generic, but there's something about them. I'll definitely give this a few more spins over the next few days.

They're supporting Florence + The Machine at my University soon. Think I'd rather see the support ahead of the headliner, often the case.

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music_phantom13

Here's what it comes down to, as far as I'm concerned. They are certainly not a bad band, and I don't think anyone with the slightest interest in indie music simlar to this would say that. They make some pleasant melancholic, simple, melodic music with nice beats. I would also fully agree that there is a sort of hypnotism about there music that makes it more enjoyable to listen to than what I might here from other bands in the same genre. However, the simple fact is, this sound has been overdone. Regardless of whether a band is doing it a little bit better than their peers, there is so much like this flooding the market. The deciding factor really is two things: first, the beats. They manage to write these soft melancholic songs that make you want to move. The other thing that sets them apart is that they actually made an album. I can't honestly say that about a lot of bands these days, as it is becoming more and more rare (in the indie rock scene) to find artists that can make something flow this well together, truly writing songs for an album rather than to get a few songs on everyone's playlists. Without those two factors, that makes you want to move when you listen to this, this band wouldn't be much different than the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Big Pink, and the whole list of indie acts coming from Scotland right now (think Twilight Sad). But are they really worth this hype? Absolutely not. I do think I realize why they got so popular though. A lot of "indie" music people are teenagers that are only listening to music, again, like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Stars of Track and Field, and that sort of thing. If you only compare them to those bands, then they do stand out, in my eyes, as one of the top bands. They are one of the only ones, as I mentioned, to have a beat like this and craft an album. So they garnered all the press from magazines like AP, which only cater to that type of sound (though I still don't understand how they are the absolute best of those bands from this year). But when you compare them to different new music, they just can't compare. For example, Lightning Bolt creates experimental rock to blow your mind; Timber Timbre is in the same vein with very simple blues but ingenious lyrics, a fantastic unique singer, and incredible diversity; Dalek writes cruel, realistic, dark lyrics and creates an abrasive, assaulting soundscape to rap to; Animal Collective uses tons of sounds at once to create a childish yet mature music where they pour forth everything they've got at once. When you put them up against bands like these, they don't seem quite as amazing, at least as far as I'm concerned.

As for Pitchfork giving them best new music, they **** up a lot, and I often find myself wondering if sometimes they all spend a day smoking crack before writing reviews and choosing music. I don't think they're all bad, but I don't trust them completely because they sometimes choose truly awful bands to hype.

EDIT: Actually the beat part doesn't apply when talking about some bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs obviously, but holds true for a lot of the melancholic Scottish indie bands.