Left to right: Rayne Booth, Harry Bookless, Bennie Reilly, Davey Moor, Ed Costello, Michelle Considine
Little xs for Eyes (stylized as "little xs for eyes") is a six-piece Irish indie-pop band. They distinguish themselves from most other indie bands by incorporating multiple vocal harmonies courtesy of the band comprising three female members, along with one of the males occasionally providing lead vocals on other songs.
Current members:
- Bennie Reilly - vocals/rhythm guitar
- Michelle Considine - backing vocals/glockenspiel
- Rayne Booth - backing vocals/keyboards
- Davey Moor - vocals/electric guitar
- Harry Bookless - bass guitar
- Ed Costello - drums
Former members:
- Adrian Reilly - drums
- Lucy Jackson - backing vocals/synthesizer
Discography:
- S.A.D. (2011)
- Everywhere Else (2015)
The band and its music provide examples of the following tropes:
- Album Filler: Arguably "Dusky Seaside Sparrow". Though the ambient notes are in the same key as the succeeding song on the album, "Funk Island", it doesn't seamlessly segue into it, sounding somewhat more evocative of the long intro of album closer "Disko Bay".
- all lowercase letters: Their band name is usually stylized like this.
- Anti-Love Song: In "Your Ex Girlfriend", Bennie laments that she and her former lover can't be Amicable Exes.
- Author Appeal: As one reviewer put it succinctly, the band's lyrics are about "the love of nature, and the nature of love." It's also made abundantly clear that their favorite season is summer, with song titles like "Summer Never Comes", "Summer Stay", and the album title S.A.D., which is an acronym for Seasonal Affective Disorder
. - Boyish Short Hair: Former band member Lucy Jackson has this, which serves to distinguish her from Bennie and Michelle.
- Cover Version: The release of their single "Summer Stay" includes a B-side of the band's cover of "Bette Davis Eyes".
- Design Student's Orgasm: The music video for "Love Gets Lost" plays like they took records of the band performing the song, a kaleidoscope, and a green screen, and put them all in a blender.
- Epic Rocking: "Disko Bay", the last song on Everywhere Else.
- Fading into the Next Song: The first two songs on Everywhere Else; "Phantom Wings" fades into "Love Gets Lost".
- Four More Measures: On "Logical Love", the verse starts two measures later than you'd normally expect. The unusual rhythm doesn't help with this; see Uncommon Time below.
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: Three women (Bennie, Michelle, Rayne [formerly Lucy]), three guys (Davey, Harry, Ed).
- Location Song: "Funk Island" is an uninhabited island off the coast of Newfoundland where the great auk was hunted to extinction. According to the band, the song is about the anticlimactic feeling of arriving at a long sought-after destination.
- Love Nostalgia Song: "In Three Years" is about a woman whom her ex-lover is very bitter with, and throughout the song, she believes that she won't be forgiven for whatever she did even after three years. In fact, the last half of the song has her counting up the years by threes, occasionally repeating the words "you won't forgive me," eventually concluding with "In 51 years, you might forgive me/But in 54 years... I'll have forgotten you."
- Lyrical Cold Open: S.A.D. opener "Summer Never Comes" has this. "Funk Island" starts with all three female singers harmonizing together, followed by Davey joining in after one stanza.
- Mundane Made Awesome: The music video for "Somewhere With a Dance Floor" reflects the song itself, starting with the women enacting an interminably boring office day, until the song changes pace and the guys start tossing paper on and around the girls. Amusingly, Bennie and the other girls keep singing while all the craziness goes on during the whole video!
- Non-Appearing Title/One-Man Song: "Chet".
- Precision F-Strike: A barely noticeable one is made in "Summer Never Comes":"Oh, where is the summer, where the fuck is summer, why hasn't it come?"
- Rhyming with Itself: Occurs in "Your Ex Girlfriend", sort of, rhyming "friend" with "ex-girlfriend". In the same manner, "In the Light" rhymes "light" with "twilight".
- Song Style Shift: "Somewhere With a Dance Floor" starts on a slow, lazy rhythm, which changes to fast-paced pop as the singers start vocalizing halfway through the song.
- Uncommon Time: "Logical Love". The intro has six measures in 14/4 time, while the verses have three in 14/4 and one in 12/4, followed by the chorus which is in normal 4/4 time.
- Vocal Four-Way: The band has a total of four singing members out of six, who often sing two, three, and in the case of "Funk Island", all at once, in harmony.
