MOG Music Network

2010/01/28

Beach House--Teen Dream album review

Take comfort in Beach House this winter. The band’s third (and my first) LP is a nocturnal 10-song set that just happened to come out in the dead heart of winter, arriving as a welcome beacon. Teen Dream is one of those rare records you can put on and immediately elevate your spirits. Filled with unending charm, the contagious listenability of songs like “Walk in the Park” and “Used to Be” is seemingly eternal (at this point at least).

Beach House’s sound falls at a cross-section somewhere between the dream-pop of artists like Hope Sandoval, M83 and Chairlift, while managing to resurrect the sounds of Stevie Nicks’ early days in Fleetwood Mac. Victoria Legrand’s organic and glowing vocals shimmer amongst an ethereal bed of fluttery guitars and atmospheric keyboard drones giving the album a simple, yet powerful and soothing sound. Plaintive, melancholic and cathartic all at once, the wanderlust-inducing Teen Dream provides an aural wonderland for the everyman or woman getting cabin fever in his cubicle or carrel this winter. Finally, the fading and repetitive outro of “Take Care” leaves listeners with the hopeful promise:

I’ll take care of you
Take care of you
That’s true

Dream on.

--WH

"Take Care":

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