The xx return with a hushed and meticulous new album in “Coexist”

By: Colin Rabyniuk –

For much of its history, pop music was shiny and vacuous. Introspection was the exception to the rule. Ten years ago, Britney Spears and Nsync were at their peak. The music was vapid, yet still more successful than at any time before or after. But a tectonic shift occurred in pop music, and the genre has entered a new age.

A certain anxiety now underpins the music. It’s an ethereal experience built on encoded megabytes. Technology has brought a cultural loneliness. Faster connection leading to greater isolation. Pop culture is beginning to reflect that.

Coexist, the latest album from the xx, embodies this new normal.  The album’s heavy reverb glows coolly like the LCD light of a laptop after midnight. The strained drum machine is dimmed quietly as if to not wake your parents asleep across the hallway. To great effect, much of the energy from their debut has been stripped away. It’s haunting how this new sound captures this decade’s anxious disconnect. At times, the record serves as a lonely cigarette drag on the balcony away from a party, everything quiet and remote through the closed sliding glass doors.

Furthering this loneliness, lost love is a major theme on Coexist. “Do you still believe / in you and me / Do you still believe / in all we can be?” singer and bassist Oliver Sim asks on “Missing.” Sim and Romy Madley-Croft reinforce the tension with their modest deliveries. Often they exchange lines back and forth like quarrelling lovers. Because of their approach, a powerful hopelessness pervades the album.

Jamie XX (AKA Jamie Smith) functions as the band’s backbone. His demure, intimate rhythms drive the music forward.  The crisp beats tie together the reverberating guitar leads and pulsing bass lines. Take any song and you will hear careful understatement from Jamie xx’s drum pads. “Reunion” is a stand out track for the DJ. Delicate steel pans popping beneath Sim and Madley-Croft’s voices give way to a refined, dance beat. It’s a brilliant track.

With their debut album, the xx delivered an impressive, fully realized product. Coexist proves that wasn’t a fluke. While not as engaging initially as xx, Coexist is a strong follow-up. Surely, it will cement the group as leaders of this new era of pop music.