Beach House "Teen Dream" (2010)
Beach House are a duo who had initially tried to work in a lo-fi way,
leaning on their limitations to push them further and then often
drenching the results in reverb.
After two albums, the band signed to Sub Pop records and recorded this
album. They changed things up, going for a more sophisticated
approach. I'm just listening to one of the previous albums at the
moment to get an idea of them and it seems like a similar vibe in some
ways, so I guess the change in approach is around production choices
(they said they used hardly any reverb this time around) and arrangement
ideas.
The album opens with "Zebra" which is clean guitar and some nice layered vocals backing it. "Walk in the Park"
has a pulsing organ groove that seems like it should be a breezy Beach
Boys-style piece but instead feels somehow ominous, like there's an
underlying unhappiness. Looking at the lyrics, I suspect that was
intentional.
"Better Times"
starts with a nice light keyboard and starts getting subtle guitar
parts coming in too. The chorus somehow has a bit more oomph to it while still
being restrained. It eventually builds to a climax of arpeggios and
vocal. "Real Love" is a spacious piano ballad with atmospheric synth
sounds in the background.
Another one where I liked the overall sound and would happily listen to
it again (or check out some of their other albums). Like it's a nice
sound, but the songs didn't necessarily stick in my memory after I'd
finished listening to the song/album for some reason.
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