For some reason London creates some pretty decent music
A friend of mine tipped me on The xx a couple of weeks ago, stating I might like it. Well, I think it is one of those albums that slips by you and you need friends to remember you of. Today I returned him the favour by tipping him about Florence + the Machine. Both bands have become quite famous in 2009, last.fm included them both in their top 40 of 2009, which means a lot of people listened to your album.
The xx - xx
In spite of the repelling album cover art, the album is not irritating at all. In fact, it is a really impressive first album by four people (now three) from London.
xx starts out pretty dark with the functionally named acoustic Intro. I like the dark ambient sound, so that's collecting brownie points alright. The acoustics stop after a short intro in VCR, but the moody ambience continues. The two voices complement each other nicely and I am still enjoying the album.
After Crystalised, Islands, Heart Skipped a Beat and Fantasy I am still waiting for the weakling of the album. Instead, the tender sound of Shelter starts. This is easily the best song on the record, ingeniously beautiful and smooth. It starts with smooth vocals, building up, smoothing down again... rinse and repeat, but does not bore. I do not know why, it just does not :-) I can even let it repeat.
The next song, Basic Space, probably is the most popular one of the bunch and it is with good reasons. The vocals and rhythms are very catchy. The records continues and keeps up the quality. This will be playing in my music player for quite some time during quiet evenings and weekends :-)
Florence + the Machine - Lungs
Also from London (they keep on popping up) comes Florence + the Machine. This band revolves around its lead singer, Florence, and has a bit more power behind it than the sometimes very minimalistic xx. I am starting to think I find the English accent soothing to listen to, because I get the same feeling with her voice as I did with Kate Nash. Florence's music is less singer-songwrity and more gripping.
The albums starts out rather frivolous and takes a page from Nash's book: up-tempo, but with a more "epic" voice booming from your stereo. The songs range from slower ballads to crazy ramblings (Kiss With a Fist is rather funny), but the main part consists of strong voiced lyrics and a decent tempo.
Highlights for me so far are: Rabbit Heart, Howl, Drumming Song and My Boy Builds Coffins.
