I'm not going to lie to myself, even though i've told people that I like Beach House, i've kind of never really given a shit about them. I really have nothing against their Sk-1 drum beats, baritone vocals, or synth layered atmospheric dream-pop songs.. But at the same time I never want to listen to Beach House and I always have a hard time getting through their first two full lengths. It's beautiful and it's good, I know I know.. But it also kind of bores me a lot of the time and I find that the music starts to drag and it makes me feel like time is going slow; not slow in a romantic, "I want this moment to last forever" kind of way… More like a "mother fucker, is it really 3:13 still? I swear it was 3:13 at least 2 minutes ago… hmmm weird." So when Teen Dream came out, I downloaded it and let it sit on my ipod, without a single listen, until around August when I went through a "I'm going to listen to all the records I normally wouldn't ever want to listen to" phase. It was night time and I decided I didn't care if the record made time slow down, because that just meant more time to sleep. Then I hit play and "Zebra" starts and I lost my cookies. It was beautiful, textured, catchy, emotional, and not boring at all; in fact quite the opposite, it was delicate and interesting. In this record Victoria Legrand doesn't sound bored to be making a record, she sounds soulful and enchanting. Down to the core this record is sad and has so many heartbreaking qualities to it, even though I have no fucking idea what that gel is singing about, i'm pretty sure it's some heavy stuff and i'm pretty sure I can relate. Songs like "Norway" and "Used to Be" invoke Stevie Nicks in her Fleetwood Mac days just for the chorus, then it's back to that same old dreamy Beach House sound, which in this record is perfectly acceptable. "Walk in the Park" is by far the stand out track, with a shimmering chorus so enchanting it's untouchable by the rest of the album. I could suck this albums dick for a while longer, but it's 4:35 a.m. and the record is not really slowing down time. When you get down to brass tax, Teen Dream doesn't really make me want to go back and listen to Devotion or their self titled release very much, because I know that shit doesn't hold a candle to what Teen Dream is working with. This shit is as good as it gets.
-YtWt
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