The Stranger

The xx's songs are still and spacious things. The guitars and bass recall early New Order (when they still sounded hollowed out by the loss of Ian Curtis); the beats are muted, bedroom-bred stuff. But the sensual, often sexual tension in covocalists Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim's close-quartered, whisper-soft boy/girl duets fills their album's latent spaces with an animating electric charge. And deeper listens reveal subtle rhythmic action and addictive melody in their deceptively quiet songs. With Friendly Fires, Holly Miranda. (Neumos, 925 E Pike St, 709-9467. 8 pm, $12, 21+.) by Eric Grandy

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