don't forget when it all felt right

The place held by Beach House among the current crop of dream-pop avatars has already been well cemented by its first two albums of brittle paeans to love, devotion and a bevy of strange obscure objects of desire. The new and rather brilliant Teen Dream takes a slightly different tack, the song material better developed and sounding more fully formed, more immediate, though essentially it’s still Victoria Legrand (voice and keyboards) and Alex Scally (guitars) reprising their aching brand of atmospheric pop nostalgia. Legrand’s singing continues to dazzle, a lungful of romantic melancholy that cradles the lush mellifluous perfection of “Silver Soul” and “Real Love” – these torch songs aren’t necessarily autobiographical reflections, to be sure, but her singing gives them a sense of warmth and personal geography. Former single “Used To Be” (also one of my favorite Beach House songs) is given a fresh, more expansive arrangement. The duo are clearly developing into much stronger tunesmiths with the breathtaking musical settings of “Walk In The Park” and “10 Mile Stereo”; or take the uninterrupted bliss of “Better Times”, where the waltzing melodies shadow the damaged romanticism Legrand conveys (“Been a fool for weeks, ‘cause my heart stands for nothing”) like reassuring patches of darkness and light. Songs and drifting moments such as these underpin the soporific appeal of Teen Dream, with Beach House weaving an elaborate web of tenuous memories, frights and other glowing emotional relics.