Beach House – Thank Your Lucky Stars (Review)

Beach House’s newest album surprised a lot of people and not just because it was only announced a little more than a week beforehand. A lot of people weren’t expecting it considering it’s only been two months since their last album Depression Cherry. What they tweeted was true when they said it wasn’t supposed to be a B-side leftovers collection from Cherry, but it is still really difficult to not compare the two back to back.

If you’re a Beach House fan, I’d recommend you wait a while before giving this album a good listen. Some of the magic starts to wane and it feels a little bit too formulaic. The instrumentation still has deep reverberation to give it that dreamy vibe. The melodies really linger to give it that sense of time you have in dreams. It’s the kind of music you want to listen while you sit in your room in the dark, especially since this album is thematically more dark than Cherry.

The lyrics are unquestionably some of their most death-tinged ones. The song title “Elegy to the Void” sounds like something you would find on a Black Sabbath album. Instead, we have singer Victoria Legrand putting provocatively unholy images like “Black clock looming distance” and “Diamond maiden chained” in our minds. The closer, “Somewhere Tonight” only has nine lines, but uses economic word choice to create a wonderful, haunting poem. The singing also brings it alive, adding just the right amount of personality to make it the right mix of real and haunting, like the ghost of an old friend.

The overall album has the same subtle sonic melancholy that Beach House is now known for, but it lacks any real highs. Normally, lack of volume diversity is a big turn off for me, but their commitment to the mood makes it real easy for you to vibe out to the songs. It does also somewhat help with the feeling that we may be getting too much Beach House at once, but it still has the downfalls. Even though they haven’t become self-absorbed about their sound, it is starting to feel like there are only so many songs you can write with a slide guitar and organ.

This album was still an enjoyable mix of Beck-like dream pop and electronic music. I would listen to this when I’m in the mood for chilling beauty.

Rating: W-P-½

Key tracks: “Elegy to the Void,” “All Your Yeahs”

Check out “All Your Yeahs”:

About Mateo Muro

(Web Director) What's up, my name's Mateo and I like playing gamecube and/or eating M&M's with popcorn. I also can believe that it's not butter.

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