Baltimore duo Beach House was mostly unknown before releasing its second album in 2008. That record, “Devotion,” got the band noticed in hipster circles, with Pitchfork raving about it in typically overwrought fashion. Even Rolling Stone gave it a positive notice. And it was a good album.

Their latest is a great album. “Teen Dream,” their Sub Pop debut (out Tuesday), is an astounding step forward in songwriting and sound. It’s deep and powerful, the result of intense focus and single-minded determination to get it absolutely right. And they did.

Singer and organist Victoria Legrand and guitarist/keyboardist Alex Scally shut themselves away from outside distractions for months last year, honing their ideas with producer Chris Coady in a converted church in upstate New York. They emerged with songs that hang in the air like smoke in a half-lit room, drifting slowly through curtains of hazy organ and Legrand’s throaty, elegant voice.

All that time spent in isolation manifests here as a certain insularity. It’s bookended in the hastening solo guitar part that starts album opener “Zebra,” which rises skyward in the chorus; and in the faintly pulsing instrumentation on last song “Take Care,” Legrand’s voice spiraling up in affirmation (or possibly resignation) as she repeats, “I’ll take care of you, it’s true.”

She often sounds both weary and knowing, singing as if to herself on the piano ballad “Real Love,” and searching for the line between illusion and reality on “Silver Soul” over glistening cascades of guitar.

It’s intimate and mesmerizing in a hushed, cryptic kind of way that makes “Teen Dream” a record to hear over and over again.

— Text by Eric R. Danton, photo by Jason Nocito

LISTEN
Norway mp3

January 22, 2010 at 8:30 am | Share |