They Say We'll Go Far, But They Don't Know How Far We'll Go

Beach House - Teen Dream
Sub Pop (2010)
Rating: 9.3

So it took four weeks, but we finally have the first great album of Twenty-Ten (come on kids, Two-Thousand Ten is for lames), and I guess technically The Tens. Beach House is a band that has shown promise for a few years and a couple albums now, but were still too lost in their own haze to warrant extreme praise. As a matter of fact, I personally felt that they took a few steps back from their self-titled debut release to their sophomore album Devotion. I basically wrote Beach House off, and dismissed the warmth and promise of their debut as one of the many one off flukes in modern indie music. Out of nowhere at end of 2008, Beach House put out a single song called "Used To Be", and just as quickly as I had wrote them off Beach House was reborn. "Used To Be" cleared the fog that lay over every note of Beach House's previous releases, and the mix for the first time felt as though they had taken great consideration to what sounds complimented one another, and what sounds drowned out the other. A whole year later Beach House comes full circle, and finally cashes in on the promise that is four years in the making. Teen Dream is a prime example of an artist or group growing more comfortable in their sound, and as a result perfecting that sound both sonically and emotionally. Beach House has accomplished the near impossible feat for cleaning up their sound while keeping their overall resonance and atmosphere, in effect they have traded moppy foggy haze for a more crisp dreamlike haze. Each track bristles and churns, surges with emotion and a dark sense of euphoria. I cannot express the importance of the mixing on this album. On previous albums, Victoria's voice often felt buried alive, but on Teen Dream her luscious voice soars above and carries each song to new heights. She is a cross between Stevie Nicks and Hope Sandoval with a rasp of Beth Gibbons, and as a result she creates a towering new voice that is among the most relevant and heart rendering in modern music. The message of most of the songs on Teen Dream are lost in the beauty of the delivery, and for some artist this is a problem, but in the case of Beach House it is par for the course. Beach House is about the feeling and the space a song takes up in your room, mind, heart, whatever. The guitar and vocals ride the wave of synths, and wash over you crash after crash. "10 Miles Stereo" crests and falls, and crests and falls, the whole while remaining rooted in its original synth drone. "Used To Be" makes an appearance midway through and acts as the link between Beach House past and present. "True Love" is mood music of the highest form, I can't tell what Victoria is saying on most of the track, however, the sound and delivery of the song as a whole is hipster makeout music the likes of which a whole generation has been deprived. It's smoky, aching, and primally carnal. "Silver Souls" could have been on either of Beach House's first two releases, but with an execution that those albums lacked. "Walk in the Park" suggests that part of Teen Dream's new found respect for the engineering aspect of album making is due to the time Beach House has spent with sound perfecting Grizzly Bear. Victoria's synth stomp on "Walk in the Park" is the long lost cousin of the piano stomp on Grizzly Bears "Two Weeks", and not since Veckatimest has an album been so sonically spot on to create a specific tangible sound. While the emergence of Victoria's voice in the mix is the star of Teen Dream, it isn't the only star. Alex Scally is no guitar virtuoso, but he understands the gravity a simple longing slide riff can bring to any song. Track after track Scally's mournful, entrancing guitar slinks through, and adds a resonance that cannot be described or properly celebrated. It is the subtleness, the absence of bravado in the riffs that grounds each song, and Teen Dream as a whole. Teen Dream is a meditative album of the highest caliber, beautiful, striking, and engaging without ever being over powering. There is a classic element to Teen Dream that suggests a staying power that few modern albums have. Some may have complaints about the tinny drum machine that carries the album along, but ultimately that drum machine is the cornerstone that cements Teen Dream in the Beach House sound despite the vast improvements across the rest of their musical landscape. Victoria sings "They say we'll go far, but they don't know how far we'll" in "10 Miles Stereo", and no line on Teen Dream cares more weight because it is a summation of the band itself. We all thought they would go far, but few knew it would be this far.

10 Mile Stereo - Beach House