New Beach House Record 75% Less Boring

Beach House creates music that you’re only going to be listening to at the beach when it’s pouring rain outside. Still, there’s a need for this type of thing and their new record, Teen Dream does a stellar job of it. It’s a marked improvement from 2008’s Devotion, an unbelievably dull record, especially considering the rave reviews it received (one exception—a beautiful cover of Daniel Johnston’s nearly perfect song Some Things Last a Long Time). This time out, however, Beach House (Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally) create a record that may be the perfect soundtrack to a rainy day at the beach, or anywhere else. I find myself playing it on repeat during Snowpocalypse 2010 here in D.C.

So what makes Teen Dream work where Devotion so boringly failed? In a very general sense, the songs here seem to have more of a purpose. Only a few tracks seem to meander (Norway, Real Love), but most have very direct hooks that catch within the first minute. Alex Scally’s guitar is excellent all over this record. The opener, Zebra, starts with a simple plucked electric guitar, with Victoria Legrand rhetorically asking “don’t I know you / better than the rest?” The guitar is out front again on Silver Soul, but this time Legrand lets her voice fly a bit—“it’s a vision / complete illusion / it is happening again / it is happening again.” Used to Be is as close to a straight pop song they may ever do, while 10 Mile Stereo is as driving of a song as the name implies.

Most impressive on this record, I think, is that Beach House did not change their sound, they just made it sound better (wait…isn’t that a tag line for a commercial?). It’s the sound of a band growing into their own and learning to use each other. Teen Dream will never be everyone’s favorite record and I won’t be putting it on to entertain guests, but it may be the best sleepy, rainy day pop record we hear in 2010.