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Feb 18, 2022The kind of album you can put on and leave on: vividly atmospheric, melodically beguiling, and seductive enough to keep you coming back over and over.
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Feb 18, 2022If that album [7] expanded the idea of what Beach House could sound like, then Once Twice Melody fills in that idea with colors both familiar and new.
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Feb 16, 2022Constantly interesting, even exciting in many places, it reaffirms the long-held consensus that these two musicians have stardust in their fingertips. ... And whilst it may not be instantly identified as their best record, the longer you sit with it, the more deserving of that title it becomes.
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Feb 18, 2022By the time Once Twice Melody reaches its closing moments, it sounds like the band are taking a well-earned victory lap in a career full of wins.
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Feb 14, 2022From the majestic opening notes of the title track to the last electronic flourish of closer “Modern Love Stories,” Once Twice Melody is the culmination of everything Beach House do best.
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Feb 16, 2022With Once Twice Melody, Beach House proves there’s more to the duo than fans may think, with brash, lively arrangements that shine as much as the restrained ones.
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Mar 29, 2022The duo is always tinkering around the edges of their sonic universe, getting darker, weirder, subtler, and more expansive. They do all of that on Once Twice Melody, and the payoff is enormous.
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Feb 21, 2022It’s testament to the structure and variety of Once Twice Melody that it never lags over 18 tracks, its gradual release paradoxically validating the album format as one still worth surrendering to, totally.
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Feb 18, 2022Beach House succeeds on Once Twice Melody as they always do, by pushing their sound as far as it can seemingly go, while still sounding like themselves. The difference is, now, they are taking the biggest risks of their career.
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Feb 18, 2022Even in its more intimate moments, there’s a certain theatricality to ‘Once Twice Melody’, which is home to some of Beach House’s most surreal lyrics.
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Feb 17, 2022The album stands as a triumphant poke in the eye to modern listening mores. It sounds like a leisurely road trip around the hazy fringes of the most intense summer of your life, back in the days when summers – like this album – comprised segueing chapters.
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Feb 15, 2022Weaving in dustier threads to Beach House’s ever shimmery fabric proves that the cyborgian approach of mixing the organic with the mechanical is an increasingly winning formula.
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Feb 15, 2022Final track Modern Love Stories plays out with acoustic guitar and strings in tandem, emphasising the new textures that Once Twice Melody has introduced, perhaps not with universal success, but nevertheless there are moments here that rank alongside Beach House’s finest work.
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MojoFeb 14, 2022It's Beach House's grandest vision yet. [Mar 2022, p.83]
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Feb 14, 2022As well as drawing more liberally from the likes of My Bloody Valentine and the Cocteau Twins, this time they’ve woven into the mix some 80s synth-pop motifs (Masquerade could be Duran Duran circa 1982), but the overall effect remains as bewitching as ever.
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UncutFeb 14, 2022Once Twice Melody's greatness lies not in its hugeness - it's in the duo's ability to create music that possesses the same intimacy regardless of its scope. [Mar 2022, p.33]
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Feb 14, 2022Beach House’s hymn to the grandeur of relationships is, perhaps, the most musically diverse and thematically mature project the duo has released to date—an emphatic affirmation of life’s joys and sorrows.
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Feb 17, 2022The sprawl, the surfeit, is the point. You need plenty of room to summon a mood as widescreen as this. It’s a long way from the summer sun to the dark embrace of the universe, and on Once Twice Melody, Beach House are determined to cover the entire distance.
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Feb 18, 2022Though undoubtedly a beautiful set of tracks, Once Twice Melody suffers from its length – almost eighty-five minutes is hefty for a listen in one sitting – and the occasional clashes in instrumentation and vocals, with sequenced drums and synthesisers taking away from the warmth of Legrand’s voice.
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Feb 16, 2022A Beach House record is best experienced like a shooting star, thrilling for its relative scarcity and singular propulsion. Once Twice Melody feels more like a sunset than a shot of light from the universe's depths — magnificent and enormous, yes, but also familiar.
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Feb 16, 2022The impatient will find ‘Once Twice Melody’ a tad wishy-washy, but for those who persevere there’s still a lot going on beneath the waves.
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Feb 21, 2022Legrand weaves a series of intersecting narratives of love and loneliness, intimacy and abandonment, maturity and nostalgia. Any one of these themes is rich enough to fuel far more than Once Twice Melody’s eighty-five minutes, but Beach House’s storytelling is defocused to the point of indistinction, strung out of moody vignettes that flow like asphalt and stick like the tide. ... Fortunately for us all, this is just too gorgeous a record to pose a true slog.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 73 out of 80
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Mixed: 3 out of 80
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Negative: 4 out of 80
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Feb 18, 2022
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Feb 18, 2022
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Feb 20, 2022Somehow, they’ve outdone themselves. The best band somehow got better - impressively dynamic songs, clear vision, perfect execution.