The new Beach House album will exceed your expectations.  Well, Rosalie Wind thinks so.

    Formed in 2005, the dream pop duo Beach House perfects a hushed, lo-fi music style in their third album, Teen Dream (2010). Victoria Legrand, whose vocals have been compared to the legendary Nico and Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval, and the equally talented Alex Scally, possess a serene and warm surf rock sound in Teen Dream. Though more structured and louder than the previous two albums, Beach House (2006) and Devotion (2008), the album still makes its listener hope to spend the day lying down in a drugged-out haze, withdrawn into peaceful and calm seclusion.

    Having stated in an interview: “One thing Victoria and I can agree on is that our music is its own world,” Scally accurately describes Teen Dream. You will notice that each song has the same sound: lush, swelling melodies combined with Legrand’s overwhelmingly intimate vocals. Her lulling voice washes over the music, while slow and atmospheric rhythms tower over each chord progression and organ sample. Though each track on Teen Dream has this woozy and dreamlike style, you want more by the end, just as the fifth track, “Walk in the Park,” predicts when Legrand sings: “More, you want more/ More, you want more, you tell me.”

    From the first track, the lush and gorgeous “Zebra” to the finale, “Take Care,” in which Legrand repeatedly drones, “I'd take care of you if you'd ask me to/ In a year or two,” the private and dark Teen Dream disembodies, yet completely seduces its listener. “Zebra” makes you wish Legrand wrote the lyrics only for you: “You know you're gold, you don't gotta worry none/ Oasis child, born and so wild.” Beautifully put together lyrics feel more like poetry, as conveyed in the eighth track, “10 Mile Stereo”: “They said we would go far, but they don't know how far we'd go/ Cause this heart is a stone, and this is a stone that we throw.”

    “Used to Be,” Teen Dream’s singular light and plucky track, wakes you up as Legrand asks: “Don't forget the nights when it all felt right, are you not the same as you used to be?” “Lover of Mine” follows and puts you back under Teen Dream’s cloudy spell. Other tracks like “Better Times,” “Real Love,” and “Silver Soul” reiterate the wonderful haziness of Beach House. You marvel at how two musicians using only organs, keyboards and vocals can create music so subtle and clean, and yet so staggering and powerful at the same time.

    Produced in a converted church called “Dreamland” in upstate New York, the ten-track album epitomizes the recording studio’s name. Dreamy and unreal, Teen Dream consumes you with its private and sedated sound. Its almost eerily still feel might creep you out a little, but you might find that you kind of like it.

(Also, for your viewing pleasure, Beach House issued a DVD with Teen Dream in which different artists created videos for each track. Some are extremely good, some are unusual, and one has shows wolf people making out. Be sure to check it out, especially the videos for “Zebra,” “Silver Soul,” and “Lover of Mine.”)
5/5