‘On the Creekbeds On the Thrones’ is the second LP by XV, a limitless, fiery, deep-breath of a record. Where their 2019 debut had a startling, first-kiss energy, ‘Creekbeds’ is reflective, momentous, poetic. Textures multiply, evoking both the endlessness of sky and the terror of a bottomless well. There’s a daring sort of faith in these songs, the way the three members trust in the resonance and persistence and joy built into each song and the way they trust in each other. This faith provides a tender, messy space for thoughts, feelings, outbursts, joys, and sadnesses. The observations made on this record – from petty irritations to existential crises – are articulated in a way that feels always like solidarity, never like whining. Paired with the tumbling snarl of the instruments, the songs project a kind of clumsy telepathy, a heartfelt exchange that is both confrontational and deeply welcoming.

Our take: On the Creekbeds on the Thrones is the second album from Michigan’s XV. XV’s first album looms large in my consciousness… I didn’t hear about it until a year after it came out, but once I heard it, I couldn’t stop listening. (You can read the staff pick in which I raved about it here.) Perhaps it’s because I listen to so much hardcore, but XV’s music felt like the perfect counterpoint to my usual listening diet, like a yoga position that pulls your limbs in the opposite of your habitual direction and releases a flood of endorphins. Whereas hardcore is tightly structured, aggressive, heavy, and (often, at least) macho, XV’s music is feminine, loose, and airy, seeming to drift in and out of existence like some kind of wood nymph. On the Creekbeds on the Thrones picks up where the band’s first album left off... like that record, it feels like a glimpse into someone else’s consciousness. XV has called their music “free punk,” and like free jazz it eschews the rigidity of structure that almost all other punk music takes as a given. Take a track like “Tasmanian Angels,” which starts off as a ramshackle, Television Personalities-style twee punk tune, but over the course of its three minutes unravels into a vaguely Eastern-sounding jam that could be an outtake from one of the Velvet Underground’s first two albums or even one of Alice Coltrane’s early solo records. Throughout the album, XV floats between more “rock” moments and passages that are freer (and usually quieter), but it feels less like changing gears and more like a natural process such as evaporation or freezing, happening so incrementally that you can’t pinpoint when it moves from one mode to another. I can see someone—especially someone who doesn’t feel like they need a counterpoint to the punk that dominates their soundtrack—finding this aimless, or even finding stream-of-consciousness lyrics to songs like “Pen” and “Fresh Lettuce” too artless. For me, though, XV’s music transports me somewhere no other band can take me.