Beach House: Teen Dream

Beach House
Teen Dream
Sub-Pop; 2010

I am so glad I decided to review this album. I picked it because it was released in January, and for some reason I haven't listened to it until just today. Apprehensive at first, I was afraid to be let down by Teen Dream. But to the contrary it has quickly become my favorite Beach House release to date. On one hand I am kicking myself for waiting until now to listen to it. On the other hand, spring has come to my area of Michigan, and Teen Dream is a welcome breath of fresh air. This is an album better suited for a walk down the shoreline, the low sun glistening white off the bay, and a mild southern breeze, than it is an album for the cold north wind and icy glow of January.

This is really a spring and summer album. Perhaps that's why the second track "Silver Soul" opens with the sound of a small stream of running water, almost as subtle as the sound of melting snow, with a few chirping birds in the background. In fact Teen Dream's subtleties express the very anticipation one feels this time of year, waiting for the weather to agree with the shorts you've had put away for the last five months. Watching the temperatures climb each week in small, sometimes painful increments. It's an album perhaps best appreciated by those who have spent time on the beach, absorbing the dreamier twilight hours before and after sunset. I know how awfully trite and corny that sounds, and maybe I am just too anxious for summer's arrival. But listen to this album, the first track even, and tell me the reverb-drenched cymbal crashes don't recall the sound of waves.The sound waves make when you've been down on the shore so long they all seem to blend together into one fluid song. I have always thought there was a clear reason they named this band Beach House.

I was first turned on to Beach House at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival. It was sweltering hot and I hoped to secure a good position at the small stage (back when it was over in that paved area and not under the nice shade trees of Union Park's opposite corner) for the Fujiya and Miyagi set later. Luckily for me in so many ways, mellow duo Beach House was playing to a relatively small but calm and extremely hot crowd, and I was able to easily maneuver to the front. Beach House played an awesome, carefully crafted set, which happened to be exactly the relief I needed from the heat and expensive bottled waters. On stage they were humble, and completely absorbed in their craft. It's as if they are playing just for you, and including Teen Dream, their albums maintain that personal, intimate feel.

In the subsequent years Beach House remained relatively static, but never to their detriment. The Baltimore dream-pop duo's third release, their first on the Sub-Pop label, Teen Dream doesn't alter the core framework of their great prior releases. What it does accomplish, however, is an improvement on that core sound-- not and advancement but an enhancement. This record is really, uncommonly exquisite. If you liked them before, you're going to love them now. The minor differences in no way constitute a dis to their hardcore fanbase. If you've never listened to Beach House, there has been no better opportunity than right now. This is Beach House, fully realized.

Teen Dream represents three distinct, relatively minor differences from their past releases. In terms of sound, you still get the same unique reverb-dream Beach House aura, the same chamber-pop feel, but a noticeable increase in production and recording quality takes those qualities up a notch. The sound is fuller, more expansive, and consequently more affecting. It's a more romantic, more imaginative sound. At times I even detect, under all the reverb and dreaminess, a certain folky Fleet Foxes quality. Every instrument sounds fuller on this album. I am wondering if their switch to Sub-Pop made this possible. On Teen Dream, Beach House brought in engineer Chris Coady, who has worked with TV On The Radio and Grizzly Bear, among others. They holed up in a church in New York state to record this album, and its echoing, robust feel brings to mind the vast acoustics of a cathedral. The best example of this is the whirlwind keyboard arrangement on the song "10 Mile Stereo," which becomes so enveloping it feels like the gentle ringing in your ears from the pressure when you dive deep underwater and turn to look through the blue-green space to the sun beaming above the surface.

The second difference I have noticed is that singer/keyboardist Victoria Legrand, to her great benefit, seems to have fully embraced the wholesome, earthy Stevie Nicks side of her voice, the opposing Nico half being marginalized and relegated to the background harmonies and various "ooohs ah-ah-ah-ah's." That Nicks vs. Nico dichotomy is especially apparent on the album's first single "Norway," and I am very pleased to see the more mature Stevie Nicks side win this particular battle. And Legrand has range, too. At times delicate, soft but never flimsy, as on the piano-based track "Real Love." In contrast, Legrand can wail, like on "Lover of Mine," "Walk In the Park," and "10 Mile Stereo." Throughout the album's entirety her voice is always stable, always possessed of an unwavering confidence. On the track "Better Times," that very strength and command in Legrand's voice shows when she sings, "Been a fool for weeks/'Cause my heart stands for nothin', and your soul's too weak." This is absolutely Stevie Nicks territory. Legrand seems comfortable with this maturation as a vocalist, and the result serves especially well in the context of their sound to enhance Teen Dream's overall atmosphere.

Each song is still as carefully arranged and constructed as their previous releases, each song still crafted to evoke a certain mood. It's hard to describe, but Teen Dream feels like a happier album to me. For the most part, the vaguely haunted lyrics are still here, as on "Walk In the Park," in which Legrand sings the chorus, "In a matter of time, it would slip from my mind/In and out of my life, you would slip from my mind," and later, "The face that you saw in the door, isn't looking at you anymore." There's an excellent remake of their 2008 single "Used To Be," which still evokes the helpless feeling of lost love. Opening track "Zebra" compares love to a "stag in the white sand," and asks the question, "Don't I know you better than the rest?" Legrand sings "We don't need a sign to know better times," on the song "Better Times." Despite all this, there is a more cheerful element permeating the composition of these songs than on any past Beach House release. It must be Teen Dream's crisper recording quality, more glittering and ethereal than ever before, that even among Legrand's sometimes tortured laments allows for this subtle happiness.

I can't think of one thing I dislike about Teen Dream. This is my favorite kind of record, one that evokes in the listener a varied range of feelings. As I listen to this album I cannot wait for summer in northern Michigan, and everything that entails. This is music for looking over Lake Michigan from a 400 foot cliff at the edge of the sand dunes. Or for taking in an ideal sunset, and sticking around to watch the colors that light up the horizon afterward. Teen Dream is a great victory for Beach House. It shows what fantastic band they really are. I heard through the grapevine that Beach House has started to "blow up" recently. That is absolutely fine by me. That would be wonderful in fact. This is a band and an album that will enrich your life. Dream pop, for the masses! Soak it up.



Beach House - "Norway"
Beach House - "Silver Soul"
Beach House - "Walk In The Park"
Beach House - "Better Times"

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