BEACH HOUSE: TEEN DREAM
[rating:5]
Beach House: Teen Dream
Label: Sub Pop
Release Date: January 26, 2010
For their third album, Beach House’s Victoria Legrand continues upon a grand sonic theme, building narcotic, intoxicating songs for a cloudy day and to “gather medicine for a heartache,” as she croons on “Silver Soul.” Mostly, Beach House songs exhibit this sort of rainy day, sleepy-eyed charm, but on Teen Dream, they let a few rays of sunshine come through the clouds. Not a full on summer day, but just a few rays of brightness in an otherwise cool landscape.
Beach House songs still have a singular quality of seeming to float, the atmospherics of the organ and the heavily reverb-ed guitar making these songs both atmospheric but still grounded by the deep and sonorous quality of the vocals. On Teen Dream, the drums have begun to do some of the work of the songs, elevating them to previously unforeseen tempos and actual energy. On “10 Mile Stereo,” a song that starts softly and builds to a seriously triumphant crescendo, both the steady increase in the energy from the drums and the energy in which Ms. Legrand belts out the chorus make what is without a doubt their brightest song to date. “Lover of Mine” uses the drums to craft what sounds like a charming document from the days of Rhythm & Soul, Vol. 1, something akin to a Beach House song that you could dance to.
The casual distance that makes Beach House both important and accessible, i.e., the strength of the melodies from both the guitar & the vocals, is all still here, as this record is not far from what one might expect the new Beach House album to sound like. It’s both a baby step forward from their stellar 2007 album Devotion and a slight slide step sideways from a sound that has thus far defined this band. Songs like the album’s 1st single “Zebra” and “Norway” still owe a debt to progenitors of the sound like the Cocteau Twins and Mazzy Star. Teen Dream manages to further these comparisons while making the statement that Beach House no longer needs to be compared to the bands that came before them, but compared with these bands.
-John Whitaker
1 Comment
edlavender
February 3, 2010Great review. This album is getting loads of attention, and I think it’s well deserved. Victoria’s vocals are so powerful and really shape this band. It’s nice to hear a strong voice that’s not dependent on some quirk or layering to make it listenable and one that leaves the arpeggio’s to the instruments.