Listening to the latest Beach House album is like jumping from a great height into a massive pool of warm water. That’s the effect their wide ranging sonics can have on the listener, with stately, slow moving songs that often melt the heart with a single chord change or turn of melodic phrase from singer Victoria Legrand. The gently rocking electro of ‘Beyond Love’, the stately ‘PPP’ (with its standout lyric ‘did you see it coming, it happened so fast, the timing was perfect, water on glass’) or the floated delivery of ‘Levitation’ – all are strongly affecting, and show off the duo’s talent to make a great deal of emotion from seemingly very basic source material. The single ‘Sparks’, meanwhile, is simply gorgeous, and best heard loud. The textures owe a fair bit to shoegaze and to the visionary efforts of the Cocteau Twins, but Legrand and Alex Scally achieve an unusual tension and vulnerability in their music, as though balanced on a tightrope and not sure whether to look up or down. ‘Depression Cherry’ casts its wonderful spell over just nine tracks, showing just how powerful slow music can be.
5 out of 5
Reviewed by Ben Hogwood
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