Forget The Horror Here

xx - The xx

The xx’s Mercury Prize winning debut album xx epitomises the idea that great music does not have to be complicated. The London three-piece masterfully bring together the treble-heavy guitar riffs of Romy Madley Croft, simple bass of Oliver Sim, and the genius beats of Jamie Smith (Jamie xx) and the result is a sparse, moody indie pop that is oozing with cool. Another asset of their sound is the vocal interplay between Madley Croft and Sim as together they weave lyrics that are full of teenage yearning and intimacy. Their song craft and minimalist approach allows Smith’s production to come to the fore, as he creates the nocturnal atmosphere that is so crucial to their mesmerising sound. The band are from the heavily dubstep influenced southLondon, which is definitely reflected by their spacious soundscapes, dramatic crescendos, and at times wobbling bass lines. This urban flavour does not stop this record from being accessible, because it is on a basic level great pop music.

The record’s instrumental opener Intro turns a simple guitar riff into epic euphoria with ease, with Smith’s beats working their way in and out to great effect. The next track VCR is beautiful, combining the pulsing bass drum, with xylophone and vulnerable vocal line. Madley Croft and Sim sing in unison ‘I think we are superstars’ and indeed they are. Crystallised once again achieves an truly epic feel with its chorus after a slightly spooky intro and sparsely intimate verse with Sim’s lyric
‘So don’t think that I’m pushing you away / When you’re the one that I’ve kept closest’. Next comes the angular, funky guitar part and thick bass of Islands, which explores lyrically the contrast between the vastness of exploration and security of the familiar. Heart Skipped a Beat once again deals with teenage relationships, and is structurally a masterpiece, with instrumental sections, rises and falls that are based around Madley Croft’s sexy gliding guitar and Smith’s RnB beat.

It is in the second half of the album that the space and atmosphere really rise to prominence as the songs become both sparser and darker, but still keeping their naïve charm. The underwater atmosphere and desperation expressed in Shelter with ‘It felt so crystal in the air / I still want to drown whenever you leave / Please teach me gently how to breathe’, along with an amazing build up and drop, are mesmerising. A similar build up is present in Infinity as Smith uses the emphatic hand clap in an unbelievable crescendo. Basic Space is quirky, sparse and later descends into a simple groove that is quite brilliant. Stars is a beautifully constructed track, combining the eerie piano, heavily distorted basslines and delicate vocal. The spooky atmosphere created by Night Time is sheer brilliance, using echoing guitar harmonies, imaginative beat patterns and effortlessly catchy lyrics like ‘Night time, sympathize / I’ve been working on white lies’ to create a work of genius.

One downfall perhaps of the record is that the band fail to venture too far from the winning formula of simple melodies, minimalist instrumentation and urban beats, that they have found to be so successful.

However this debut does though really have it all; brilliant melodies, a great depth of sound due to fantastic production by Jamie Smith, subtly imaginative lyrics, and a vibe that is ever so cool. Every single song on the record is worthy in its own right, but also as a whole it has been hyped, become immensely popular and also widely critically acclaimed. Xx surely has to be the best debut album of the decade, and shows that there just might be hope for the history of pop music.

The Fool - Warpaint

Four-piece-girl-group Warpaint’s debut album The Fool combines hauntingly seductive vocals that soar over the intertwining guitar and rumbling bass melodies to create a dark, lo-fi, indie rock that is brimming with cool.

The nine track debut is overflowing with creativity and imagination, as the group stretch the boundaries of song structure, at times giving the impressions of one long jam. The mesmeric grooves created by new drummer Stella Mogwaza and bass player Jenny Lee Lindberg evoke such depth and atmosphere, and allow the flamboyance of guitarists and singers Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman to come to the fore as they weave their intricate melodies.

The opener Sets your Arms Down’s sparse and bass dominated intro blossoms into psychedelic polyphony that goes on and on, building layer after layer of warped sound. The next track, also called ‘Warpaint’, is driven by a repeated riff, as the intro and verses convey a darkness of confusion and inadequacy with ‘Cold and under, I almost forgot to/ Face up to what I ought to’ and ‘Don’t know why I feel so different/ Feel just like a different person’ until the tension is released by a euphoric drop.

This sort of structure is common throughout the record as the best song, Undertow also starts with an amazing chilled verse that is full of depth with the odd lyric ‘Now I’ve got you in the undertow’ which sums up the intense, enticing sound. Then the group crank it up a notch with drummer Mogwaza coming to the fore along with the lyric ‘Nobody ever has to find out what’s in my mind tonight/ Nobody in my mind’ and intense polyphonic melodies that grow and grow to an epic scale. With next track Bees the band takes the psychedelic groove to a new level, with a wonderfully weird bass line and haunting guitar. No song is wasted with the beautifully warped acoustic effort Shadows, the widely varied Composure, the lo-fi groove of Majesty, and the beautiful ballad Baby, which is stripped down to Kokal’s vocal and her acoustic guitar.

For me Warpaint’s sound is genius. It combines fantastic melodies in every area, with great tone and depth and a darker, warped atmosphere. It is this crisper, tighter sound which separates the record from their promising first EP. The imagination and song craft of this record is brilliant making The Fool the best debut album of 2010.

Total Life Forever - Foals

Foals’ follow up to their widely acclaimed debut Antidotes (2008), sees theOxford quintet take a large step from upbeat post punk, heavily influenced by afro beat and techno to a mellower, more spacious sound.

The opener Blue Blood begins with peaceful intro and verse, but everything changes as the bass enters suddenly with a quite brilliant groove that would belong on the first album. This continues in the early stages of the album, as syncopation of the title track, and hip-hop style beat and slower tempo of Miami combine funk with pop to great effect.  

From start to finish the record screams blue with oceanic swells created by keys on Spanish Sahara and interlocking guitars on Black Gold, which sums up the record really well with a brilliantly bouncy guitar riff in the intro reflecting the dance rock element of the opening part of the album, and the transition as Philippakis looks forward, quoting Paul Valery with ‘The future is not what it used to be’. Black Gold is definitely the turning point as the second part of the album is much darker, the masterpiece Spanish Sahara with the vast space, haunting quality, unbelievable build up of tension and amazing release as it drops. Other tracks include the atmospheric and emotional After Glow, epic sounding Alabaster, where Philippakis returns to one of his favourite subjects: destruction with ‘She’s up in the sky, and the sky is on fire/ She set the whole neighbourhood to light’ and 2 Trees of hypnotic beauty

The lyrical content, vocal melodies and delivery from front man Yannis Philipakkis are the most important factors in Foals’ progression to a new level of quality. Philippakis’ yelps on Antidotes complemented the frantic nature of the music, and the majority of the songs were based on the instrumentation and song craft, but in Total Life Forever his more delicate melodies are the centrepiece, conveying great emotion along the way.  Lyrically Philippakis also progresses from the abstract images of ‘Crash down fury red/ There’s holes in our hearts and heads’ and ‘Butcher birds will fly away, electric bloom’ to more profound ideas but still keeping his imagination with ‘Help yourself, help the rest/ Inhale, exhale/ Lungs paper frail’. However there are still common themes in the two albums as Philipakkis often dwells on escapism ‘if only we could move away… Let’s disappear till tomorrow’ and ‘Saturday we could come home and cut the phone lines’ from Antidotes and ‘Spanish Sahara, the placed that you’d wanna/ Leave the horror here’. In fact it is in Spanish Sahara that Philipakkis’ lyrical genius comes to the fore, which is about a ravaged landscape with a desolate beauty and attempts to get rid of traumas that multiply into a bunch of furies (referring to his Greek heritage and the myth of the Greek furies that would haunt families over generations) ‘I’m the fury in your head/ I’m the ghost in the back of your head’.

The production on Total Life Forever is out of this world, creating space, depth, atmosphere, and evoking the vibrant blue on the album cover. Philippakis’ vocals convey great feeling and make it an intense listen, evoking so much emotion absent on Antidotes, but keeps the imagination and genius instrumentation of their debut. This record is beautifully constructed with not one weak track, as the intensity never fades. The contrast between the dark, haunting moody tracks towards the end and the lively, upbeat tunes likeMiamiand the title track, make Foals’ second record one of the best albums of the decade

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