Is it just me, or does that first keyboard tone in the new Beach House single, Norway, sound like the beginning of Anthony Carew by Diana Rozz?? Anyway, no offense to the Wellington riffmongers, but the moment Norway slips into it’s breathy ha-has and milky, trebly guitar, the Baltimore duo own the sound completely. The dreamy, husky tones of their first two efforts still exist throughout third album Teen Dream, only sped up – not quite to a danceable point, but definitely enough for Beach House to escape any previous criticisms of their music which pidgeonholed them as a snorecore lullaby band. Victoria Legrand’s vocals no longer drift around in a daydreamy manner, they seem more direct and filled with intent here. One of the albums many highlights comes in the form of Walk In The Park – despite treading pretty close to Devotion territory in its verses (I swear the opening guitar part is copped from some lost demo of Gila), the track pulls out the best hook of the album, Legrand opening into ‘It will slip from my mind / In a matter of time’ with a rather heartfelt sense of newfound positivity. Alex Scally’s presence on the guitar is missed in most of the choruses on this album (except the beautiful Norway), freeing Legrand up to soar with her voice – who, despite proving her vocal power at their last Wellington show, keeps her higher notes on Teen Dream wispy and slightly strained. Meh.
Nothing on the album really falls far from their first two, save the change in tempo across the board and a far cleaner and well-realised production on the keyboards and vocals (no daydream filter on Legrand here – GOOD JOB SUB POP!), and it’s all the better for it – Beach House aren’t really a band who need to change their style to continue churning out the hits. I feel like it’s going to take way too many Grizzly Bear comparisons (the wistful Used To Be, an update on their post-Devotion single, particularly – just listen to that piano and those cymbal fills), but it deserves to be set apart from that – they’ve crafted their own organ-reliant dreamy sound, and on Teen Dream, make it that bit faster, that bit more direct, and a whole lot better.
