Tangled Up In Wires

Beach House hasn’t really changed that much between 2006 and now. They’re still Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally. Their music is still hauntingly fuzzed keyboards and tangly guitars; the blueprint unchanged from their first two good-but-not-great records. But by making some slight changes, Beach House has crafted a total masterpiece. Sure, all their music is dreamy, but whereas Beach House and Devotion felt more like a dream you’re struggling to remember the next morning, Teen Dream is a vividly recreated memory. It’s melancholic, eerie, hypnotic. It’s the flooding house scene from the end of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The highpoint of the record is the one-two punch of “Silver Soul” and “Norway” two absolutely gorgeous, sweeping songs connected by a heart-stopping sustained organ. “Silver Soul” takes its time, moving Legrand’s haunting, affected voice slightly higher in the mix than usual and letting her pretty much dominate the song. This is a wise choice since her always strong vocals are in a totally different plane here, wringing out every last bit of pathos simply by repeating “it is happening again,” while the keyboards, guitar and drums cascade around it. As for what’s on the other side of that organ…well, you’ve probably heard “Norway” by now and there’s not much I can add to it. The sweeping climax to “Silver Soul’s” gradual build, “Norway” is nothing less than a capital-A Anthem, one that felt like a timeless standard from the first time hearing it.

But what’s shocking about Teen Dream is just how good the rest of it is. Beach House diversified their sound just a little bit, adding pinches of jazz, soul, AOR, 80s pop, and 90s haze. They’ve also shaken the icicles off of their frosty formalism to make their most immediate album. Songs like “Walk in the Park” and “Used to Be” make perfect use of fuzzy keyboards and cheap drum machine to generate feelings of isolation, sorrow, and regret that are so powerful that what Legrand is singing almost doesn’t matter (how she sings it, though, is another thing entirely. Her voice tends to be what people talk about first and it’s just as husky and soulful as ever. But on Teen Dream she sounds more direct and emotionally raw than before. Take the heartbreaking conclusion to “Used to Be,” where she repeats “coming home, any day now” like she knows it’s a lie. It’s almost exhausting to listen to).

Taken collectively, the first five tracks on Teen Dream are mindblowingly good. Like, they’ll make you believe in God. But I don’t want to undersell the back half of the record because what it lacks in immediacy it more than makes up for in precision and attention to detail. “Near, yet so far,” Legrand sings on “Lover of Mine,” getting at the vague pangs of longing that really come to dominate the last part of Teen Dream. Even the shoegazey, surprisingly muscular “10 Mile Stereo” circles back to the theme of loss (and in a really pretty, ambiguous way: “Limbs parallel, we stood so long we fell”), and while “Real Love” reads as the most ambiguous song on paper, the album’s relatively stripped-down sound and Legrand’s voice don’t need any explanation. Its such a powerful song that I couldn’t believe there was still one more left, but “Take Care” brings the record home beautifully.

I’ve read the term “haunted house rock” to describe the Beach House sound and, while a little cute, that’s probably not too far off, but this record is way more Wuthering Heights than Paranormal Activity. There’s a Gothic melancholy and a sense of timelessness that fills every second of every song. I’ve really struggled with writing this review, because I can’t put the ways Teen Dream affects me into words. It is a minor miracle that needs to be heard to be believed. One of TUIW’s esteemed commenters pointed out that our pick for the best album of 09 was released in early January and set the bar so high, nothing else could compete. Well, I don’t mean to jump the gun, but it is happening again. It is happening again.

Jonah’s Score: 98
Mike’s Score: 82

Tangled Up in Wires Grade: A

P.S. You can download Norway for free here, and Amazon’s MP3 store is also giving it away. What are you waiting for?