the xx

A bank holiday weekend and the time that I finally fill in the tax return. Means clearing up messy paperwork and generally filing a few things.

Time to also swap a few car CDs, having been listening to saint etienne's old foxbase alpha for quite a while.

Instead in goes The xx. A debut album that sounds surprisingly well formed. One I can already sense will be on the playlist for a while.

Sounds which would go well in a David Lynch movie soundtrack. Laura Palmer returns to Mulholland Drive. It turns out The xx are from South London and were born in the 1990s. They have kind of landed rather than been promoted.

There's a clever edginess, with stripped back sound stage, and old 80's MPC for drumming, some strangely blues tradition guitar, a bass that sometimes drifts on like a background explosion and self-aware lyrics that flame with burning houses, uncrossable bridges, lovelorn outsiders, stars, infinity and (of course) boiling wax.

Always good, they sound like themselves, rather than a copy of someone else.