Teen Dream

Maybe the growth is only obvious to those who've been following, but that doesn't take away from the obvious upgrade of accessibility found here.

Teen Dream is deeper in hue than its predecessors. Its blues are bluer, even while warmer tones abound, and Scally’s guitar emotes as lithely as the voice it dances with.

None of the changes are drastic, but together they're just enough to cover Beach House's once-monochrome canvases with washes of brilliant color.

They’ve made an absolutely magical record--the jagged edges of their past have been smoothed by the sea, making Teen Dream a soft shore gem in the crown of the great chronicles of youth.

They’ve always been able to create music to pair with this feeling of nostalgia but Beach House has somewhat, in a way, perfected their dream pop with Teen Dream, an album that flows like the beach and cascades with lush melodies, harmonies and fantastic gentleness.

Dream is a go-for-broke collection that not only creates and sustains a hi-fi drowse-pop drama throughout its 10 beguiling songs, but comes across like a logical and gorgeous extension of all the band’s previous dreams.

It helps that Teen Dream, Beach House's third album, is the best thing the band has done. Legrand and her bandmate, Alex Scally, have been ready for a homerun shot since 2006's selt-titled debut, and they cracked this one into the stratosphere.

This is both the most diverse and most listenable of their three full-lengths, and yet it never seems like a compromise. It feels like the product of careful, thoughtful growth, bringing in new influences--bits of mid-1970s Fleetwood Mac, sparkling indie pop, even a few soul and gospel touches--while maintaining the group's core sound.

This is industrial-strength Beach House with its hallmarks intact, just bigger and better. With co-producer Chris Coady, Legrand and Scally lift some of the haze that has often enveloped their music...now the band has given us this year’s first classic album.

2008's critically lauded "Devotion" set the band on a new path, landing them an opening spot for buzz band Grizzly Bear and winning the hearts of hipsters the world over. Teen Dream, however, takes things to a whole new level.

Though it's not as eclectic and whimsical as their earlier work, Teen Dream is some of their most beautiful music, and reaffirms that they're the among the best purveyors of languidly lovelorn songs since Mazzy Star.

Beach House makes it easy on Teen Dream, supplying an intense but transparent sheen of iridescent sound, marking an album whose quality is almost instantly evident. Better than anything in recent memory, the album typifies the difference between sonic interference as an instrumental tool and a blanket to hide beneath.

Teen Dream is just such a fantastic pop record because it never seems to try to be: it’s almost as if the duo had intended to make another mopey shoegazing affair and accidentally stumbled upon something transcendent.

This Baltimore dream-pop duo, whose dense-fog organs, reverb-y slide guitars, and nodding harmonies feel as lush as a midnight walk in a wet garden. On their third album, those feelings now sound like actual songs, with swelling choruses and an all-encompassing ache.

Teen Dream finds the duo resolving to present their songs in somewhat firmer strokes. Nothing rocks, exactly, but organs coo in sharper focus, drum machines bear with added vigour, and an eerie disquiet occasionally linger. [Feb 2009, p.79]

They occupy an ethereal wonderland of their own design on Teen Dream, a place where '80s soft rock mingles with slow-pop soliloquies, producing an oscillating, supernal bliss both sparkling and somber. [Feb 2010, p.92]

Overall, Teen Dream lives up to its promise of youthful fantasy. [Holiday 2009, p.76]

The most unmistakeable sound on Teen Dream is that of a band truly finding its own voice. In so doing, they may just have minted the new decade’s first essential album.

Many have already been drawn into the melancholy whirlpools of their past two albums; yet more will surely be drawn by the warmer embrace of Legrand and Scally’s latest statement, a stronger, rhythmic definition offering a hand through the ether, beckoning the listener into their fluid tapestry.

Instead of modest waltzes and looped drum machines, there’s an evident maturity in the way the production unveils itself as richer and far more multifaceted. When you can’t break the familiar, expanding on those opportunities only makes you more in control.

Beach House have reached the point in their career where achieving grand melodic climaxes seems to come to them effortlessly, and on Teen Dream the climaxes are as thrilling as ever before.

Ultimately it's an incredibly rewarding listen, even if the self-observing anxiety that's writ large throughout means it doesn't quite reach the lofty heights to which its creators have bravely aspired.

The album sounds more elaborate, but never fussily so. Legrand’s voice retains its place atop the organ beats, keys, guitars and acoustic drums.

By tightening things up, another sprightly highlight emerges from this pleasant haze.

Leaps and bounds over the act's earlier material, "Teen Dream" allows Legrand and Scally to truly come into their own while leaving the listener aching for more.

This record, however, makes an indelible mark. [Feb 2010, p. 110]

Teen Dream is kind of MOR, it would go down a treat at a dinner party, there are boring bits and the doleful DIY magic of the debut seems to have more or less run out. But it’s shot through with more than a handful of heartstoppingly wonderful moments.

Teen Dream’s best material comes up front (“Zebra,” “Silver Soul,” “Norway” “Walk in the Park”) , and there’s a bit of a sag in the middle (“Lover of Mine,” “Better Times”), with songs that are pretty enough, but without any big payoffs.

They're more radiant than ever on their third disc, particularly on songs like "Zebra," with background chorales swooping over stately guitar plucking.