Beach House – Bloom (2012)

Back in 2010 I was browsing through the bands that were about to perform at the Flow Festival that year and that's how I found Beach House. Their new album Teen Dream had just been released. Back then, I didn't really listen to that much music that sounded like Beach House. The sound was much more electronic compared to singer-songwriter folk and guitar indie that I was listening to at the time. However, Beach House's dreamlike and beautiful pop music made an impression on me and when pretty much everyone else was watching M.I.A., whose music I do not like one bit, I saw Beach House live and that gig was an amazing experience that really opened my eyes towards dreamy synth pop. Bloom was the following album to Teen Dream, which I bought having just moved to London. It was quite similar to its predecessor.



This album hasn't been as important to me as Teen Dream, but that is just probably because I had heard Teen Dream first and I don't think Bloom brings anything particularly new to Beach House's sound. There are many good songs on this album, but they sound like they could just as easily be leftover tracks from Teen Dream.

After that magical Flow festival gig I saw, I've sort of had bad luck with Beach House's gigs. I went to see them here in London at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, but arrived quite late, which meant that the crowded floor was so full of people that I couldn't really fit in there and the view and sound quality were very poor from the back bar. After that, I've always booked tickets for the balcony in Shepherd's Bush Empire. It's not a very good venue. Then, later on, I was meant to see them at the Field Day Festival, but Field Day festival had decided to book all of the artists I wanted to see at the same time and I couldn't see even half of the bands I wanted to see because the stage times were overlapping. Now I don't really listen to Beach House as much anymore so I think my chances of going to see them are fairly unlikely. I'm glad though that I got to see one really good gig by them.

There are a few songs on this album that stand out from the rest. The opening track Myth is a great opening track in that it sets the dreamy mood with growing intensity. Lazuli uses interesting, almost industrial sounding organ sounds and great choral vocals. Other People is probably the most obvious hit song from the album with great echoey electric guitars. The Hours has one of the best melodies on the album. Wishes is also a very well constructed pop song with catchy melodies. In a very 90's style, Bloom has a hidden track that starts after a few minutes of silence.

Beach House has beautiful movie-like music videos. The video for Lazuli is a great example of a music video with proper storytelling. I don't know what exactly the story is about, but there are great cinematic sequences about supernatural events in the heartlands of America. The video ends with the band playing their music in space filled with neon lights and a guy who has sat at the bar for the duration of the video gasses himself in his car.

Now that I'm listening to this album, I really feel like I should listen to it more. After those couple of disappointing concert experiences with Beach House, I kind of forgot how great band this is.

Listen to the album on Spotify.