I won’t hear a bad word said against steel drums.
[Video][Myspace]
[6.20]
Katherine St Asaph: Part of “Far Nearer” is sung in unintelligible mumble, as if squashing Jamie’s voice into computer-aided mushmouth will give it gravitas. Part of “Far Nearer” is sung in obnoxious infant voices, as if squawking out syllables will make things breezy. Most of “Far Nearer” uses the same preset as “Crank That (Soulja Boy).”
[2]
Brad Shoup: To be sure, anything’s better than the xx’s wallpaper pop, but I really didn’t expect a super-chill dubstep track. Delightfully pitched-down vocals burble sweet nothing over steel drum (!) and melodic bloops. I’m not nearly as wild about the cod-Collective chirping their “you”s and “me”s, and the song is far too long, but I significantly prefer this template.
[7]
Iain Mew: Taking some gorgeous sounding steel drums, a couple of fascinatingly out-of-context distorted vocal samples and a disjointed clattering beat and somehow slowly rearranging them into configuration after configuration in a way that keeps you hanging on what comes next, it’s impressive just how easy Jamie xx makes it appear to sound this good.
[7]
Alfred Soto: The xx had just started to learn the science of sound and space, the manipulation of warmth, the coating of melody. Now the mastermind demonstrates what he’s learned. The best steel drum hook since Prince’s “New Position,” and not the only hook. When fans describe dubstep, this is what I hear in my head.
[8]
Michaela Drapes: There’s a message in a bottle, far out at sea, bobbing ever closer, never quite making it to shore because it’s pulled back and held captive by a roving gang of sirens. Even if the timing of the movements of this track seem a little uneven (and maybe that’s intentional, now that I think about it), it only slips into a draggy melisma a few times before the sirens circle back, ever-taunting as they slip away beyond the horizon.
[7]