Jamie xx - 8/10

When The xx emerged back in 2009, much was made of the fact that a guitar band was employing the sparse dance music aesthetics more usually found on, say, a Burial record. Since then their beatmaker, and the main proponent behind those aesthetics, Jamie Smith, has built himself a sizeable DJ and producer/remixer career. And more than a simple change in direction, this debut album feels like the culmination of pretty much everything he's done up to this point in his career.

First track 'Gosh' is a rowdy, bass-heavy club banger, while 'Sleep Sound' recalls the delicate musicality of Four Tet or Floating Points. 'SeeSaw', featuring his xx bandmate Romy, sounds like Tracey Thorn voicing Alice Deejay's 'Better Off Alone' (and is almost as good as that sounds), while you might struggle to tell if the Oliver Sims-featuring 'Stranger In A Room' is an xx off-cut or not. But the best comes fairly late on with the one-two punch of of the Idris Muhammad-sampling 'Loud Places' (which is bound to get rinsed at sunset all summer) and 'I Know There's Gonna Be Good Times' with Young Thug, the latter proving Smith's as capable of making low-slung hip hop with crossover potential as anyone else – something we won't be surprised to see him doing much more frequently in the future.