One of the criticisms of the rock and pop star-making process in the UK is that it's desperately overheated. The effect on bands can be catastrophic: too much attention too early on; swollen heads and inflated egos; the authentically pathetic sight of an artist who feels it incumbent to start carrying on like Led Zeppelin while still selling records like Led Bib.
In fairness, this doesn't seem a problem much likely to affect the xx. Their eponymous debut album is currently the subject of much purple praise, but you would scour their live performance in vain for a hint of bullish swagger. Indeed, it's hard to see how the quartet could get more introverted short of hiding under a blanket for the duration of the gig. As it is, they stand in a line, black-clad, all barely out of their teens, with faces that run the emotional gamut from morose to I-have-just-seen-an-episode-of-We-Are-Klang-and-fear-I-will-never-smile-again. A feverish pinnacle of visual excitement is reached when bass player and vocalist Oliver Sim raises his left eyebrow slightly.
Then again, you don't need much to look at when a band sound this good. You can hear an echo of the Cure's early 80s material in the taut, tick-tocking electronic rhythms and spindly guitars, but Robert Smith's suburban ennui has been replaced by something entirely unexpected. For four people who look like they're conducting a complicated technical demonstration much against their will, the xx make weirdly lubricious music. At first glance, they're deeply unlikely purveyors of quivering eroticism, but then again, you could have said the same thing about Barry White.
"I'm burning to impress, it's deep in the middle of me, I can be fantasy," sings Sim: he might wear the expression of a man burning to get the night bus home, but he sounds like he means every word. "I still want to drown whenever you leave," offers fellow vocalist Romy Madley Croft on Shelter. "Please teach me gently how to breathe." On Crystalised, their voices entwine drowsily around each other: the effect is utterly mesmerising.
Perhaps it is drawn from their love of R&B. Tonight, they perform their glorious, hushed version of Womack and Womack's 1988 hit Teardrops: rather than the standard indie tactic of ladling the irony on to an unexpected cover version, they get under the song's skin, refracting its yearning atmosphere through a different lens. The audience are gripped, understandably so. Appearances seldom come more deceptive than this.
