I will never catch up with contemporary music ever again, I am checked out on that front. I'm too far behind even with the music released by my all-time favourite acts, so there's zero chance of getting up to speed on recent releases in general. Case in point, I intended to post a triple review of three new albums by three of my all-time favourite artists -- Moderat's "MORE D4TA", Spiritualized's "Everything Was Beautiful", and Beach House's "Once Twice Melody". Each of them had produced at least one Album of the Year by my rankings. Time passed, and I needed to add another album to the list -- "everything is alive" by Slowdive (their previous comeback record was my #2 of that year, and was in my top ten for the 2010's). Time passed again. That was in the summer of 2022. I still haven't heard any of those albums in full.
Yet once in a while, I still fall down the rabbit hole like I have this week, playing Youtube videos from the "Once Twice Melody" tour on repeat. When this album first came out, I thought I'd had it with Beach House. They had more or less stopped evolving. By "Teen Dream" they'd reached an inflection point, from then on, it wouldn't be enough to sound like star-crossed kids recording twee noodlings in their bedrooms, they needed to morph into a full-fledged, wall of sound-obsessed, immaculately produced band. And with "Bloom", they did.
Then they had a brief struggle with stylistic schizophrenia. They stepped back into the shadows with (the still excellent) "Depression Cherry", and simultaneously recorded the more upbeat "Thank Your Lucky Stars" (a good idea on paper, but the songs weren't really there). After struggling with the eternal question of whether to retreat further into moody dreampop or burst forth as a commercial indie pop juggernaut, the decision was made: we can do both. This gave rise to "7", which stayed true to their trusted formulas but sonically, they sounded bolder and richer than ever before, their collaboration with Sonic Boom. The apex had been reached, the only thing left was to officially become the dream pop AC/DC and milk the same signature style for decades to come. To me, that seemed to be the marketing strategy behind "Once Twice Melody", so I figured this was the moment I could take a time out from this band.
In a sense, "Once Twice Melody" plays out as expected. Beach House really only have one tempo -- one that they can slightly boost for the more radio-ready songs, or drag out for the slower ballads, but isn't every Beach House songs kind of a semi-ballad? They have one instrumental palate -- guitar, keyboards, and drums, and the effects boxes and presets barely change. Each song drifts along within roughly the same airy, hazy moodscape. They have perfected the show closing epic with its breathtaking coda, every album has to have one now ("Irene", "Dive", "Over and Over").
But despite all the signs that Beach House are content to churn out the same content from now until forever, I can still get completely lost in their music. Victoria Legrand's voice isn't as bright and powerful as it once was, but everything they do on stage is still mesmerizing. On any given day, their music is more life-affirming than anything else out there. Everyone has their personal ranking, but "Once Twice Melody" more than holds its own with the best albums in their catalogue. They have been in a godlike tier for well over a decade, and that's a rare thing.
