Already Accepted

"Chained" is the word The xx use for what the rest of us call falling in love and not being able to stop. From Coexist, their second album, it’s the quietest possible way to describe something that doesn’t feel quiet at all—Jamie xx’s production stripped back to almost nothing, Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim trading a phrase that should feel desperate and instead feels resigned. The entrapment is the point. You’re not struggling. You’ve already accepted it. That’s what makes it more unsettling than most songs about obsession, which at least have the decency to be loud about it.