Beach House – Once Twice Melody Review

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Shimmering through with a dream-pop best represented over a decade ago on Teen Dream, the return of Beach House after a dormant four-year period is as warm as it is engaged. Once Twice Melody is a superb achievement that manages that essential blur between reworking the momentum that worked years before and also pushing through with an essential, new drive. Opening track Once Twice Melody is a clear example of that, it is engulfing within its first few moments, riding that wave is a great moment of real fun. It comes from the overwhelming sense of it, a behemoth album stretching itself to nearly ninety minutes. That is good form, and it is unsurprising that Beach House maintains that consistency across the piece.

Maintain. Beach House notes this as the key to moving their sound to that next level. Once Twice Melody is that fresh and exciting step. Superstar has beauty in its floating vagueness. Its layered effectiveness is stunning. Pink Funeral, like many of the tracks on here, is a continuation of mood and thought. Once Twice Melody maintains this with admirable consistency, setting out its dreamlike expressions with sudden and whiplash-like authority. Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand have struck something here that they teased with the likes of their earlier works. Teen Dream was close to realising these moments. Once Twice Melody maintains that realisation with the likes of New Romance and ESP, which have a floating, LCD Soundsystem American Dream-era feel.

That is just the broader sound though, what Beach House manage here is truly unique to them. It is layer after layer of sincere quality, founded on a real push for that next big step. They reach it. Their work on Once Twice Melody is as lyrically gratifying as it is instrumentally pushing hard for new ground. Dreamlike is a nice word for a piece like this, not because of its floating, drifting qualities, but because it is overwhelmingly relaxing. Once Twice Melody is a double LP worth listening to as an immediate mood booster. Its comfort is warm, and its quality is clear to hear. Another Go Around and The Bells are tremendous, later tracks on this piece that utilise those acoustic flourishes with such a constant awe to them. Lyrical brilliance strikes through too, a very engaging album that can push through as a real example of self-released brilliance.

Self-releasing a double LP that has eighteen tracks tied together is a bold move, a big one that clearly pays off for Beach House. They will reap the rewards of Once Twice Melody, no doubt about it. Their lighter strokes of the synthpop genre can be heard in the closing tracks of the album, Hurts To Love most of all. Those sentimentalities of the traditional break-up track are toyed with, the instrumentals rising and falling in slight call-backs to the synthpop joys of the 1980s, but plastered with a new wave of instrumental qualities and a sincerity to the lyrics throughout. Once Twice Melody is a delight, even crisper knowing it is an independently released piece, it shows a satisfying end result for artists to release a piece of art they can truly believe in and depend on. So too can audiences.