The fact Real Estate have achieved this artistic development while preserving the qualities that made their earlier work so compelling is a testament to their talent, resilience and ambition following a key personnel change.
It's hard to imagine a smoother transition on the beachside sunset of an album that is In Mind.
It's refreshing to hear that they've continued to push their own boundaries and take a new direction, despite the loss of Matt Mondanile. Unlike many acts that seem to get lost and lack any creativity once they're several albums in, Real Estate have arguably produced their best record to date.
There is a familiarity to In Mind which for some may seem a little too much of the same from this now 'veteran' band, but as with every Real Estate record, their collective ears for little surprising turns and touches in amongst their overall pleasing sound, is still impressive, eight years on.
This is a band who are aware of where their talents lie and are happy to stick to them.
Real Estate’s simplicity and lackadaisical nature have always provided convenient sticks to hit them with but far more powerful is Courtney’s ability to laden these featherweight melodies with the kind of observations that make sense to their younger listeners while tugging on the homesick heart strings of their increasingly troubled older ones.
With their new album, In Mind, the band aren't reinventing the wheel, but they're expanding their canvas a bit.
From the fuzzy way-wah bridge of "Serve the Song" to the soft and gentle swing of "Holding Patterns", the band is taking great strides in diversifying their musical palette even if it primarily coalesces and not expands on their established personalities.
In Mind ... is an album caught in a moment of transition, perched halfway between reinvention and diminishing returns.
Real Estate get hemmed in by their laidback approach, stuck in a perpetual kickback between relaxation and malaise. This is a long way of saying that Real Estate, like the Jersey suburbs, can be boring.
In Mind may lack friction (there’s no Zepplyn-esque banger to keep your guard up), but it’s no worse for it. This is a band cruising in their own lane, the road smooth as Teflon.
In lesser hands their stripped-back, fresh-faced indie could simply pass for pleasant background music, but their slowly-infectious melodies and relaxed soundscape means it’s an album that keeps on rewarding the listener after repeated plays.
Martin Courtney's songwriting adjusts to a revamped band lineup, while together they continue to perfect the singular, warm, and reliable Real Estate sound.
If your life needs to be stripped of its bombast for a little while, Real Estate remain a steadfast companion for a little R&R. Just don’t beat yourself up if you can’t sit through the whole thing.
‘In Mind’, for all its charms and willingness to explore, mostly opts to bask in the lingering afterglow of Real Estate’s first truly outstanding record.
Their gem-like guitar pop songs start meandering a little. Altogether, though, In Mind feels like a collective exhale.
In Mind finds them in unwavering confidence on an album which, while perhaps not the finest of their career, occasionally reaches delicate new heights.
Similar to 2014’s ‘Atlas’, Real Estate’s fourth LP fails to pack the punch of breakthrough album ‘Days’, as their usual propensity for melody is lost beneath too much focus on attempting to subvert genres in a way that seems at times contrived.
‘In Mind’ is classic laid-back Real Estate, and while there is comfort in the familiar, at times it can feel a little lax.
While In Mind is Real Estate's best-sounding album yet, the band still fails to provide anything beyond the surface of their blissful sound.
While the band quickly found their stride and stuck to it, In Mind exposes the fragility of their framework. The first record without co-founder and lead guitarist Matt Mondanile ... it finds the band struggling to find their footing in his absence.
Despite the added instrumental color and lineup reshuffling, In Mind suffers from the same kind of languorous, unmemorable songwriting that plagued Real Estate’s previous record, 2014’s Atlas.
Absolutely love this LP. Darling has been in my rotation since the album dropped and literally it never gets old. Insanely psychedelic, insanely consistent. Theres alot to love!
Like most fans of Real Estate, I was a bit worried about the departure of Mondale, but 'In Mind' is yet another testimony of just how assured this band is in their own sound.
It's a recurring criticism of Real Estate that their records are to similar, and i get that, but if you look beyond that and focus on the albums and songs individually, the amount of great indie rock produced by this band is staggering. To me the familiarity of their sound is part of what i enjoy and once you get to ... read more
Despite crisp production and cohesion, it’s front-loaded. The first four songs are notably impressive, but the rest of the tracklist is brought down by decent songs; the album’s just spinning its wheels by the time Two Arrows comes on.
Absolutely love this LP. Darling has been in my rotation since the album dropped and literally it never gets old. Insanely psychedelic, insanely consistent. Theres alot to love!
Im a sucker for gorgeous melodies, these guys didn't reivent the wheel, but they put it to good use. Well made, interesting tracks, with cohesion and pretty light on the ears.
This entire album makes me so emotional I throw up so if u ever need me to expel a foreign object from my digestive system or suspect I’m a smuggler who swallowed an expensive diamond and need to get it out of me this is how to do it. Just play the intro to Saturday and watch me get to work
1 | Darling 4:20 | 80 |
2 | Serve the Song 3:13 | 77 |
3 | Stained Glass 3:54 | 68 |
4 | After the Moon 4:50 | 65 |
5 | Two Arrows 6:50 | 73 |
6 | White Light 3:14 | 72 |
7 | Holding Pattern 3:46 | 67 |
8 | Time 3:49 | 66 |
9 | Diamond Eyes 2:34 | 71 |
10 | Same Sun 3:17 | 69 |
11 | Saturday 4:43 | 68 |
#25 | / | BLARE |
#56 | / | Les Inrocks |
#65 | / | Uncut |
#67 | / | Rough Trade |
#91 | / | Piccadilly Records |