English indie pop band The xx released its third official album this week, Coexist.

The group first hit the radar in 2009 with their single “Crystalised,” followed by their first album a month later. In 2010, the band was awarded the coveted Barclaycard Mercury Prize, an annual music prize given for the best album from the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The trio, Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith create a sound that’s so peacefully put together that to name the album anything else would be a crime.

The band's latest work, Coexist, is something unlike any other. It breaks the mold of the typical flashy album when it introduces a work of all things minimal.

Created from the simplest form of composition, it engulfs you in a total state of transcendence, pulling you in emotionally and allowing you to feel the same passion the artists feel. From the simple, single X on the cover, to the overall quietness of the songs and the scarcity of instruments used, the album presents something so basic, yet so complex.

With its passion-backed lyrics and vocals overlaid on a delicately picked steel guitar, soft “barely-there” thumps on the drums and metronomic electronic beats, the trio creates a sound that is truly unique. Even though the lyrics are based on the simplicities of life and the little moments, the unequivocal amount of heart and soul dousing each word make it anything but easy listening.

It’s a perfectly balanced soap opera: full of drama with deep desire, lust, passion, heartache, idolization, sultry vocals and still upbeat enough to jam with the windows down. This album rivals all that enter its genre.

Listeners will also like: The Postal Service, M83, Bon Iver, Noah and the Whale, The Temper Trap and Kimbra.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.