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CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

The xx Teases New Album 'Coexist' With The Simplest Of Love Songs

The Mercury Prize-winning London band The xx stands out for many superficial reasons, from its sleek Goth look to concerts that crank up the lightshows and smoke machines. But for all its efforts to enshroud itself in otherworldly mystery, The xx's great gift lies in musical restraint; in a willingness to let clean guitar lines hang in midair, or to draw all attention toward words left unsweetened by production effects. The result may be stylishly moody, but it's also fearless.

Announced moments ago via its Facebook page, the band has just released the opening track from its forthcoming second album, Coexist, out Sept. 11. Anyone expecting a dense pop production won't find it in "Angels," a ballad which feels a bit like an introduction to a more lavish song; if past hits like "Crystalised" were spare, then "Angels" is positively barren. Opening, characteristically enough, with a clean but woozy guitar, the new song doesn't get much more bombastic from there: A few snare taps and a low rumble join the most elemental guitar lines as the few adornments for Romy Madley Croft's naked expressions of devotion.

"You move through the room, like breathing was easy," she sings, adding, "If someone believed me, they would be as in love with you as I am." A gentle love song made all the more disarming for its simplicity, "Angels" ratchets up the tension using the fewest possible ingredients. The release will have to wait until September.

Cover art for <em>Coexist.</em>
/ Courtesy of the artist
/
Courtesy of the artist
Cover art for Coexist.

Here's the track listing for Coexist:

1. Angels
2. Chained
3. Fiction
4. Try
5. Reunion
6. Sunset
7. Missing
8. Tides
9. Unfold
10. Swept Away
11. Our Song

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)