The name Victoria Legrand has slowly crept up on us in 2009, despite Beach House not having released a single thing over the past twelve months. Her appearance with Grizzly Bear on the New Moon OST and her use of backing vocals in said band’s triumphant single of the year ‘Two Weeks‘ has helped give her voice an unmistakably factor so that the day you stumble across a Beach House song, you know you’ve heard her before and you know you must hear more. On ‘Teen Dream’ she takes up centre stage with vicious, husky tones sculpted into gloriously melodic hooks that help define what many expect to be Beach House’s true stepping stone into, shall we say, “hugeness”.
Already many are calling ‘Teen Dream’ an album of 2010. Considering we’re exactly 43 days away from 2010, this seems a little premature. But you can feel a similar wave of expectancy fluttering inquisitively around this record such as that which tagged itself onto the latest Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear albums. What the aforementioned two and Beach House have in common is their position as established artists, on the brink of achieving something really significant. Both Grizzly Bear and especially Animal Collective achieved just that over the past year – a step up. There’s no reason why this Baltimore two-piece can’t do the same.
‘Teen Dream’ is however, a far from instant classic. It delves into far more areas than 2007’s ‘Devotion’ did. That album had a coherent look and feel and it was it’s greatest strength and weakness at the same time. Beach House are a band made to delve and on their third record, they have the inevitable epiphany.
Much of this record isn’t as tender and soft on the ear as the band’s previous two offerings. But the courageous move to shift from simple dream pop into more experimental offerings is a rewarding one, as ‘Norway’ brushes up on stunning vocal loops and ‘10 Mile Stereo’ provides a heady, relentless pace with soaring synthetics and tap-tap beats. The highs of this record are unlike anything else on the band’s discography to date. Everything soars into the previously unknown as this ambitious collection of songs rewards you over time more than simply from the first eerie chorus.
Initial thoughts rating:
8.0
Take Three
- Norway
- 10 Mile Stereo
- Lover Of Mine
mp3: Beach House – Norway
ALBUM REVIEW: Kings of Convenience – Declaration of Dependence
words: Jamie Milton
The manifesto was set in stone simply by naming the first album ‘Quiet Is The New Loud‘. And although Erlend Øye at least, hasn’t stuck to the rules — forming The Whitest Boy Alive and outputting his electronic inner in a DJ Kicks compilation — Kings of Convenience still remain a band for snug autumn evenings and the morning after. Their songs over the last nine years haven’t budged from the stance of pretty, uncomplicated and warming. Save challenging music for when you’re feeling braver, Kings… should not be bashed simply because they sound “nice”.
But there are still boundaries that they could cross. For an album that mischievously hints at reaching more experimental ground, it doesn’t maintain the standard set by ‘My Ship Isn’t Pretty‘, a down-tempo, compelling and unpredictable number. Said song eventually comes across as the token “alternative” track; the song that doesn’t get your feet tapping automatically, the song that demands a closer listen.
Because the vast majority of ‘Declaration Of Dependence‘ does just that. It doesn’t require a scowl and an in-depth look at the lyrics sheet. Automated listening works. This is good background music. And the honest truth is that music still needs bands like Kings of Convenience to provide people with “background music”, however degrading a term that may be.
“accessible and enjoyable from the off”
And so the jazzy, stop-start optimism that scatters around ‘Mrs Cold’ allows the listener to turn a blind eye to the fairly dark lyrical content: “I stepped too close to your boundaries. You want nobody around to see. You feel vulnerable around me.” Anybody can ignore the finer details of ‘Declaration of Dependence’ and enjoy the record just as much as someone who spends their spare time digging as deep as possible. That’s rare – I can think of plenty of records released just this year that depend on being given a closer look: Girls’ ‘Album’ would be nothing without its fragile, contrasting lyrics, ‘Xx’ would be a smaller package without its expert crafting of minimalism that is so hard to notice at first. This album pulls no such subtle tricks, making it accessible and enjoyable from the off.
‘Declaration Of Dependence’ is actually made up wholly from the theme of separation, loss and then the meeting of two: lyric “So we meet again after several years, several years of separation” quite prominently setting the tone. But then again, you don’t really need to know this at all. What matter is how tender opener ‘24-25′ eases you in, how the Jose Gonzales-esque ‘Power of Not Knowing’ attempts to put a spanner in the works, breaking away from the easeful, smiling face that draws together the majority of what’s here. What lacks is variety. Two men who arrive, plucking their acoustic guitars and singing softly, exit as some kind of monotonous, automatic tone that doesn’t budge as the album progresses.
5 years in the making, but not exactly. Øye’s had side-projects to concentrate on, Eirik Glambek Bøe’s probably developed a gambling habit. The artwork of the pair relaxing on the beach sums up that no extensive measures were undertaken to get this album written – it’s a getaway album, something to accompany a holiday retreat, something that wants to appear to be written on a holiday retreat. The result is a honest, straightforward work that maintains the easy listening factor concurrent in all their work, a factor that will result in the album losing its longevity over time.
6.8
mp3: Kings of Convenience – 24-25
MFM @ HYPEM
