Everybody loves The xx. The Simpsons’ creator Matt Groening loves them so much he asked them to play the upcoming edition of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival he’s curating. Rob Da Bank loves them too, so he’s booked them for Bestival this year. The BBC love them, but fortunately not quite enough to hurl a mountain of expectation their way with the Sound of 2010 millstone. Good luck, Ellie Goulding. NME, Rolling Stone, The Guardian… all loved them enough to place last year’s debut album xx high up in their ‘best of 2009’ lists.

Were there ever such unprepossessing stars on the rise? Romy Madley Croft, Jamie Smith and Oliver Sim (fellow founding member Baria Qureshi left late last year, citing exhaustion as the cause) all went to Putney’s Elliot School, the alma mater of Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet, and William Bevan, now outed as dubstep producer Burial. It follows that they’re also considered, intellectual types, whose music subtly redraws boundaries without stamping all over them.

Their MySpace ‘influences’ section is a shopping list of greatness, most of which they actually live up to: the blissful electro-pop of The Chromatics, CocoRosie’s nu-folk charm, The Kills’ fuzzed-up shoegazing, The Cure’s dreamy pop. Their cover of Womack & Womack’s ‘Teardrops’ is a curveball delight, while their remix of Florence and the Machine’s ill-advised cover of ‘You Got the Love’ was the whole venture’s one saving grace. Expect them to grow on you, and grow, and grow.

Studio 24, Edinburgh, Tue 9 Mar