The Post-Rockist

Beach House - “Wedding Bell”

Beach House - “D.A.R.L.I.N.G.”
(from Devotion)

I’m not really sure how this happened, but Beach House’s Devotion has managed to become my most played album of 2008. And the strangest thing is, I have only the fuzziest recollection of ever actually listening to it. It’s as if every time the clunky drum machine and mellow organ of “Wedding Bell” start to pump into my ears, my brain switches off into a gauzy reverie, wandering through a snow-covered forest where every tree has the eerily flat dimensionality of a View-Master. Twilight stars flicker on and off as the harpsichord plucks a melody around the occasionally backwards slide guitar. Snippets of somnolent vocals seem to float through the air, but they’re too heavy with reverb to carry much permanence. Everything shimmers and sways and then drifts away. Forty minutes later I’m right back where I was when I pressed “Play,” only my eyes are rolled back in my head and my mouth is dry. While this vacuum of time may not sound appealing, kind of like starting your day off with a cocktail of Vicodin and Tylenol PM, it’s a remarkably pleasant and comforting experience.

I don’t know if it helps things that Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand play in a very focused style (imagine Galaxy 500 recreating the last 60 seconds of “Candy Says” by the Velvet Underground; now extend that for the length of an entire album), but it certainly doesn’t hurt. And, to be fair, Devotion is notably more melodic and beautiful than the band’s 2006 self-titled debut. (Press information suggests that it’s lazy journalism to fall back on Galaxie 500 and Mazzy Star references — there are apparently hints of Dusty Springfield in here; Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra even! But music this pensive and languid doesn’t really scream for in-depth investigation to its sources. I’ll be on the couch with the shades drawn and headphones on.) The individual songs on Devotion tend to meld into one another, making it a frivolous exercise to say that any one song stands out among the rest, creating an overall sense of intimacy and warmth that you will either love entirely or not at all. Somehow I get the feeling that I’ll be getting lost in Beach House’s reverberant reverie for a long time to come.

-Posted by Todd