January 20, 2010

Beach House - Teen Dream (2010)

Teen Dream is Beach House's prettiest and most upbeat album. Victoria Legrand's voice has never sounded so sweet and comfortable in its range. The layered background vocals and dense instrumentation still capture that woozy late night/early morning feeling, except this time the hangover isn't as severe.

I'm curious to see how longtime Beach House fans like this new album. I was never one of them. But with Teen Dream I immediately liked every song. It's catchy in a lazy casual way. I could see this ranking alongside Merriweather Post Pavilion and Bitte Orca – albums that capture a fringe band pushing themselves artistically and oddly creating their most accessible music.

Really all the songs are great, so you might as well start with the single, "Norway" (mp3).

3 Comments:

awmercy said...

In a way, Teen Dream is like my own Rosetta Stone for their catalog, making all their previous albums accessible and pleasurable. That makes me wonder if it's me or them that's changed (likely a bit of both).

It's weird when that happens. It used to happen more often when I was younger and my tastes were growing with increased exposure. Now the sway is usually less dramatic.

Nightrain said...

That happened to me with Bruce Springsteen and Nebraska.

Nightrain said...

Sounds like Journey at times, sounds like Fleet Foxes at others.