Beach House
Thank Your Lucky Stars
Since their debut in 2006, Beach House has been the model of consistency, releasing an album every two years like clockwork. And not just any albums; 2010's Teen Dream, and 2012's Bloom were so gorgeous a million copycats sprung up in their wake. That's what makes Thank Your Lucky Stars so surprising: two in the same year? Inconceivable!
The only problem with a virtuoso act releasing two albums so close together is that we barely had any time to unpack Depression Cherry. Beach House albums are filled to the brim with sound, as if the duo is grabbing everything it can before there's no sounds left in the store. Such immense layering requires multiple listens, often with plenty of thinking and alone time in between. Two gut punches to the feels just a few months apart may end up hurting more than expected.
But it's not like Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand just rushed through an extra record for the sales, shock value, or just to say they did. Thank Your Lucky Stars is still as well-formed and jaw-droppingly well written as ever. It's frustratingly evident that their talent knows no bounds, and that the spring of their signature sound will never run dry.
One of the hidden, extraordinary talents of Beach House has always been Alex Scally's painfully expressive guitar work. Each plucked string sounds like a new widow screaming into an endless and unforgiving sky. Each note is one teardrop away from overflowing the glass of emotion built by the incredible craftsmanship. Each solo is Scally laying bare his final offering before the Wailing Wall, broken and unable to go on even a moment longer without this last supplication being answered.
And once again, of course, the album ends beautifully. How could it not? This is Beach House after all, a band so amazingly consistent in their ability to exit on the crest of the wave it's almost sickening. On "Somewhere Tonight," Victoria Legrand's vocals soar to new heights, strong enough to fill even the furthest space in a cathedral, yet gentle enough to make it feel like your living room.
Certainly, the case for these nine songs being separate from Depression Cherry is well made; it's more immediate, and lacking the gauzy reverb we've become so accustomed to, but don't assume Beach House have changed their overall aesthetic. They're just as woozy and dream-like as ever, it's just that the dreams are getting a little...darker.
Deerhunter
Fading Frontier
Deerhunter is something of a conundrum these days. To say anything they do can reach the lofty heights of Halcyon Digest--a perfect album--is an outright lie. But fear not, Bradford Cox still has the songwriting chops to drag his band along with him to the gates of Valhalla.
And that is also the main problem with Deerhunter now. Since Cox has taken over the main duties, everything they do is just a slightly better produced Atlas Sound album. The songs, while still good on their own, don't have the ethereal quality of those on Microcastle and Weird Era Cont., or the impact of literally every note on Digest. Monomania was just a metal version of his solo work.
Yes, Lockett Pundt does some writing, and his only credit here, the psych-synth ballad "Ad Astra," is a major highlight of the album; but it is Cox who truly carries the weight of most song creation, and the change in sound is so jarringly obvious, it makes the album have an emotionally distant feel. If Beach House up there is always trying to make you cry, the first six songs of Fading Frontier is trying to flatline as much as possible.
But then there's the last three songs. "Snakeskin" may very well be the best song of 2015, and it brings all the classic amazement that we've come to expect of Deerhunter: spacey Bradford Cox lyrics delivered in speech-singing, intensely layered guitars, mind-blowing bass, and percussion parts so intricate and obscure music theorists wet themselves.
The previously mentioned "Ad Astra" is as hauntingly beautiful as it is sonically diverse and fulfilling, with the first recorded used of a drum machine by the band and a gently heartwarming vocal delivery from Pundt. And the closer, "Carrion," which Cox consistently pronounces as "carry on" (a play on words, or just strange delivery, with Deerhunter you can never tell), matches Digest closer, "He Would Have Laughed" for its weight and urgency.
Overall, Fading Frontier is a technically proficient album that is enjoyable in the sense that reading a master chef's recipe is delicious. For much of it's length, Deerhunter (particularly Cox) seem to go out of their way to prove something they don't have to--mainly, that they can write songs at an advanced level. When the Tin Man finally gets his heart, however, the remaining songs are so fantastic, the slog to get there feels rewarding. An accidental marathon.
A beautiful autumn to you!
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