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Sonic Youth, 2009

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FEATURED REVIEWS

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, 2008

Beach House, 2008

The Clientele, 2007

Frida Hyvönen, 2006

Ladybug Transistor, 2006

Hidden Cameras, 2006

Beach House
Devotion
+ Venus magazine, March 2008 +

It’s a shame that David Lynch adopted Au Revoir Simone as his new favorite band, as he probably hasn’t had the good fortune of hearing Beach House. The Baltimore two piece follow a similarly threadbare aesthetic as Au Revoir, yet seem a better suit to the director’s decidedly idiosyncratic sensibilities, as they’re far more nefarious, and considerably better songwriters. They could’ve been standbys at the Twin Peaks Road House, or better yet tracked some of the hallucinatory fever dream sequences of Inland Empire. As it stands, they’re a great, relatively unheralded duo whose self-titled first record was sublime, and a follow up, Devotion, that actually betters it.

While copious reverb still envelops these tracks like a warm cocoon as it did throughout their debut, Devotion also expands the act’s monochromatic sonic palette considerably. “Wedding Bell” is a narcotized homage to the Beach Boys’ “California Girls,” thickened by muscular ripples of guitar, while “You Came To Me” is a “Femme Fetale” shaped pastel ballad, gorgeously showcasing the decidedly Nico-like monotonous coo of singer Victoria Legrand. There’s even a hint of Brian Eno circa Another Green World in the sweet undulating wash of “Astronaut,” and a subtle Motown nod on the superb, slide guitar inflected “D.A.R.L.I.N.G.”

Surprisingly, it’s a truncated take on Daniel Johnston’s “Some Things Last a Long Time” that best captures the essence of Devotion. It subverts the bereft psychosis of the original, instead imbuing the track with an icy detachment that effectively freezes the moment, hanging elusively out of time and place as Legrand croons over the elegiac, gently pulsating melody, “Your picture is still on my wall/The colors are bright as ever.” This is what Devotion achieves. It’s a hazily impressionistic collection of analog chamber pop that evokes mesmerizing reveries.