Beach House - Once Twice Melody Review
Beach House are a band that have always exceeded expectations and with Once Twice Melody’s gargantuan 18 tracks there’s more than enough of the duo to keep fans occupied till they next descend from their blissful dream pop mountain top.
Once Twice Melody is Beach House’s most ambitious project. 18 tracks of glistening dream pop transcend the listener to a blissful state of euphoria. Whether that’s with the 7 minute epic Over and Over, the acoustic ballad Sunset or the magnificent title track, this new album is Beach House at the peak of their creativity and experimentation. The album manages to feel experimental whilst warmly nostalgic towards their previous albums, especially the creativity of their earlier work.
Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally are some of the most important artists in the current indie landscape, and on Once Twice Melody they open up more than ever before, with an outpour of creative ideas. Though the track list is lengthy it often feels impossible to cut any of the tracks from this album. Title track ‘Once Twice Melody’ introduces string arrangements to Beach House’s signature sound, and serves as a perfect opener to their most colossal release to date.
‘Pink Funeral’ is Beach House at their most twisted, sounding at times like the soundtrack to a horror film. Brash strings encapsulate Legrand’s anxious and moving vocals. Lyrically, Legrand paints forlorn visions of fairy tales and broken hearts. There’s a sense of escapism in this track that seems to bleed through the whole album. The dreamy arpeggiated synths combined with strings and wailing guitar towards the end of the track are divine.
‘ESP’ is another gorgeous track. Broken acoustic guitar mesh with elegant vocal harmonies from both Scally and Legrand. The vocal melody on this track is soul crushing but it’s the arrangement and addition of strings that really give this track glowing warmth. In the past, Beach House have usually handed production reigns to someone else but on this album they didn’t. It shows. You can feel seven albums worth of growth and knowledge come to the forefront on Once Twice Melody.
‘Over and Over’ is an epic seven-minute odyssey and one of the most commanding tracks on the album. A synth choir builds slow as Legrand’s husky vocals lead us in to explosive chorus melodies and synth stabs. The track breaks down half way to lead us into an incredibly captivating outro. Slowly synths start to build with an almost spiritual feel, the melody ascends with Legrand’s vocals lulling you into the heavens.
Other highlights on the record include ‘Sunset’ an exceptional acoustic ballad with lush sliding bass, ‘Masquerade’ which sees Beach House at their most gothic and ‘The Bells’ which has some of the most beautiful guitar tones the band have ever put out into the world.
The experimentation of Beach Houses previous album 7 lingers in their 8th album Once Twice Melody. Except this time, the impressive amount of tracks delivers a higher level of hits compared to their previous sonic experiments on 7. Once Twice Melody is lengthy but not to it’s disadvantage. All of the tracks here are solid, proving a difficult task cutting any of them. Instead Beach House has given listeners what could even be compared to a playlist, a vast collection of ideas and themes that could easily be played in any order, or solely as the four chapters Beach House originally released them in.
Beach House are an ever-evolving entity. In the fifteen years they’ve been on the scene they’ve released album after album of genre defining material. It’s surprising then, that it feels like even with some of this century’s most important albums under their belt, that they’re best work is still to come. Beach House are a band that have always exceeded expectations and with Once Twice Melody’s gargantuan 18 tracks there’s more than enough of the duo to keep fans occupied till they next descend from their blissful dream pop mountain top. Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally have created an epic 18-track album that solidifies Beach House as the rightful queen and king of dream pop.
