Coachella 2026: Indie minimalists The xx come back bigger, brasher than ever

It’s been 8 years since The xx performed unneurotic arsenic a band, but it definite didn’t consciousness similar it erstwhile the U.K. trio took the Main signifier connected Friday.

For one, the members haven’t precisely disappeared. Producer/drummer Jamie xx is simply a festival mainstay and 1 of the astir sophisticated, exultant DJ’s working. Romy Madley Croft became a sapphic-nightlife sovereign successful 2023 with the clubby “Mid Air,” aft Sim’s ain minimalist, horror-streaked “Hideous Bastard.”

The band’s songs are among the astir timeless of their procreation of indie rock. Forward-thinking capable to reinvent the guitar-bass-drums palette for the EDM boom; yet stark and lovelorn capable to walk for Motown successful different era.

Yet their instrumentality was among the astir buzzed-about sets of the festival this year, a recognition to however good their catalog has stood up connected the merits. At their debut, they astir singlehandedly inaugurated a displacement towards hyper-intimate headphone popular - it’s hard to ideate Billie Eilish sounding rather the aforesaid without them.

Yet connected Friday, they bolstered that purity with the confidence, swagger and precision of the seasoned stone enactment they’ve become.

Dressed successful their emblematic all-black palette, their faces carrying a small much gravity and composure with age, the acceptable slipped betwixt the ships-in-the-night duets of “Shelter” and “VCR” to the after-hours whomp of Romy’s “Enjoy Your Life.” “On Hold” champion joined the band’s 2 worlds, sample-soaked yet stone driven; “Angels” remained a peerless devotional ballad.

There was a saccharine irony watching them adjacent the acceptable with “Intro,” a humble instrumental jam from their debut that has, done well-paying commercialized placements, go their calling paper to mainstream pop. It inactive rips. They adjacent wrapped it up with into a noise-staggered breakdown that felt similar existent stadium rock. Leave it to these 3 to drift into the murk of a warehouse nine for a adjacent decade, and travel backmost bigger stone stars and much almighty a set than ever.