We have a pair of tix to giveaway for Mercury Prize winners The xx at the Merriam Theater next Tuesday! First reader to email us at FEED@PHAWKER.COM with the name of the school where the band met wins. Good luck and godspeed!
UPDATE: We have a winner! Sepideh Etminan-Rad was the first person to email us with the correct answer to our xx trivia question: The band members met at The Elliot School. Thanks to all for playing and stay tuned for more groovy giveaways.
RELATED: There’s a singular bleakness to their debut album, which sounds like it’s been made by moonlight by a grim team of introverts, half-drunk and lonely. Listening to it with the level of attention it demands gives you a sickly jealous feeling at the intimacy, like reading other people’s love letters. It’s a waste of time looking for big hooks or moments of release, but absorbed properly this becomes quietly transcendent. Somehow, its songs are welcoming despite their insularity. There are four people in the band but this is a couple’s album. The twin vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim trade understated rich vowels, their dialogue the rope that binds 11 malnourished songs together. Romy carries all the drama with her tiny tics and unavoidably Great Voice. Oliver’s gentle croon is dangerously close to the vegan sex therapist vibe of Fujiya & Miyagi, but mostly agreeable. They are insanely well-matched, complementing and answering one another as they saunter around the bare minimum backing of their band. MORE