The summer has begun to die, and it's sweaty and smokey outside Piano's on Ludlow and Stanton. We have collected a small mass of dazed twenty-somethings - recent college grads, friends from home, friends from work - looking for a cheap Stella and a chance to see some Londoners who call themselves The XX. Neither of these desires are to be fulfilled. The pints are a good eight dollars with tip, and the show is so over capacity that entry doesn't even seem worth the flirting and persistence it would take to sway the doorman. We resign to a table in the front of the venue, with a view of Ludlow ahead.

Not many of us have heard of The XX before this week. With only some demos out on MySpace, an Amsterdam Acoustic vid on Vimeo, and youtube tags like "They're gonna be huge in 2009," their subtly increasing fame could be the first sign of the buzz band curse that hit the likes of Black Kids and the Ting-Tings. We tend to think differently. Word of The XX gets spread like a secret. You don't tell your friends about them just so they have something to throw on their next party playlist or to get them to stop blasting Justin Beiber every five minutes. You offer them The XX like you would pages from your own journal, dear and lonely and devastatingly earnest.

When the foursome, clad in black (as always), popped out the side of Piano's to pack their equipment, it was then that we got up from our table to at least meet with them, even if we missed the show. For front man and bassist Oliver Sim, these nights were his first in New York, and he was friendly and willing to speak with us without pretense. Behind him sat drummer Jamie Smith, hidden behind a bush of curly brown hair and a little bit of teenage nervousness. It took the length of a cigarette to secure a more formal interview within the next two days. Then we would get the chance to speak with them about how they came together, how they feel about their album being leaked, and the discrepancies between their style and their sound.

South Street Seaport was sweltering and bright on Friday afternoon as we approached the small white tent where the band was prepping for their sound check. Sprawled out in all that black clothing and sipping on Miller Highlifes, their calm demeanor set the mood, making it difficult for us to remember that all these suave Europeans had only recently turned twenty years old. We met lead singer Romy Croft and guitarist Baria Quershi that day, nice girls, if quiet, and tired after playing so many shows in such a short a time.

Having listened to the ensemble nonstop for the past few days, we had some questions about the band's history. It is clear from their sound that the relationship between the group, especially singers Romy and Oliver, is hardly casual. The intimacy of the lyrical dialogues reveal that the two not only share a past, but a heart for each other. Having been friends since nursery school, Romy and Oliver have grown up in tune. When Jamie and Baria joined the group in secondary school the collaboration rounded out their sound, giving us the polished, well practiced ensemble known always as The XX. The arrangement of their tracks is a volley between female and male vocals, a game with rather straightforward rules. Romy shared with us: "I will come up with one half of the song and Oliver will react to it by creating his verse through his own interpretation of my words. Everything I sing I wrote, and everything Oliver sings, he wrote. It's very rare when that's not the case." We get the sense that this lyrical world is a private one. The listener becomes a voyeur peeking into a place constructed for two, and by two, home to an unfamiliar language of friendship, if not love.

The foursome bounce off each others thoughts in a blunt and organic style, producing music with simple and bare constructions, well-balanced and clean. Despite speculation of the origin of their name, Romy assured us that the band simply 'just likes' The XX, which serves also as a sort of brand, easily recognizable and always bold. Their first impression strikes as mysterious, their sound in relation to their style isn't really an assumption as much as it is a question: Just how do you get inspired? Their response was a little less than complicated when band members admitted that "What influenced us growing up, is part of us now." The XX suggests that there really isn't anything wrong with being part of these modern times. One of the most endearing qualities of the bunch is their mutual passion for all sorts of music. "I think a lot of it has to do with the 'shuffle' function of our music players, honestly," says Sim. "On the way here we were listening to some Billie Holiday, which turned into some spoken word piece, followed up by Beyonce." Consequently, the XX's genre is self-defined and loosely written, inspired by a multicolored spread - Coco Rosie, The Chromatics, Justin Timberlake, and The Cure. The XX proves that there are no staples to bind them to any one certain sound.

Inside of their spooky synth beats and rumbled bass grooves there is recipe for a forbidden lust that the London based quartet wants us to taste. "Basic Space" being the prime example of brilliance, this song has chilly twist as it is arranged through bass pulses and synth pad breaks. The beat created keeps up the teenage love struck, knee shaking, first kiss, clamy hand emotion of the song. Amongst all of the heat and feisty passion that make up most of The XX's songs, there is a certain sweet, rather adorable track entitled "VCR" which is a loud reminder that being young and in love is just, well...really awesome. "VCR" offers us tea, conversation, and the reassurance that someone out there just "knows," which captures everything we could possibly want out of love, if not life.

Though the band seemed mildly irked that their debut had been leaked almost a full month before its release, they seemed to accept this as a sort of inevitability. So they're doing what most bands are doing these days: releasing all their recordings on vinyl, each sealed with a large and unmistakable 'X' on the cover, in hopes that owning a physical copy of the music still appeals to a young audience.

The perfected sound of The XX will be a promise to your ultimate Y2k9 playlist. The quartet will be completing a series of concerts starting at the beginning of September back on their home front with dates scheduled in Birmingham, Manchester, Hamburg, and London, though they swear they're not on tour. Check out their featured single 'Crystalised' on their Myspace @www.myspace.com/thexx and grab ear of their much anticipated EP, scheduled to launch on October 22nd, 2009, and catch hold of what you've been missing!

Co-written by Jeff Petriello