Beach House - Bloom
Critic Score
Based on 40 reviews
2012 Ratings: #193 / 1118
Year End Rank: #8
User Score
2012 Rank: #7All Time: #253
Liked by 788 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
PopMatters

Bloom is a gushing collection of top tier songs that have been carefully knitted together for maximum impact, and is absolutely gorgeous and stunning.

91
Pitchfork

"Bloom" is also what these 10 songs do, each one starting with the sizzle of a lit fuse and at some fine moment exploding like a firework in slow motion.

91
A.V. Club

With Bloom, they have mastered their sultry formula.

90
Prefix

This is a band that has hit its stride in a way that’s hard to articulate, and even harder to pull off effectively.

90
Consequence of Sound

Every movement on Bloom extends that high silence to the length of several minutes, building within the song and into the next track to send wave after wave of eyes-closing, head-tilting, fist-clenching pinpricks.

90
AllMusic

It's not the band's most immediate music, but the album's challenging mix of heartbroken words and aloof sounds rewards patient and repeated listening.

90
The Sydney Morning Herald
It's a great record, but Beach House's career path promises the next will only be better.
86
Beats Per Minute

The aching sweetness of Bloom’s ten tracks should override any misgivings one might have about the band’s seeming lack of stylistic evolution.

83
Pretty Much Amazing

Though the pair would prefer you focus on their songwriting – and Legrand’s lyrics are beautiful – it is the overwhelming aesthetic that defines this band. Bloom is beautiful.

82
Coke Machine Glow

Its production value is higher, each song’s many layers are audible, and the synths sound expensive. Fortunately, the band is able to match each dollar spent on Bloom’s production with solid raw material.

80
Uncut

The musical partners (they’re not a couple) have chosen not to try to top what they achieved with Teen Dream on the new Bloom but rather to subsume their poppy tendencies beneath a unifying aural glaze.

80
Paste

It’s an album that’s sure to satisfy long-time fans while undoubtedly garnering the band even more media buzz.

80
God Is in the TV

This burgeoning, slow-burner, fails to match the empyreal heights of their last album, Teen Dream ... Don’t misunderstand me, Bloom is still one of the best LPs you’re going to hear in 2012, if not beyond, it’s just missing a certain something.

80
Evening Standard

You’ll need to invest some time: Bloom blossoms with repeated listening.

80
American Songwriter

The impact of Bloom lingers long after Scally’s last guitar moan and Legrand’s last breathy sigh, making you want to cue it up all over again and wallow anew in Beach House’s existential abyss.

80
Sputnikmusic

Each song is part of an overarching mood whilst carving its own identity further with each listen. This mood is one of a lucid dream, one that ensnares the listener in its own creation.

80
DIY

Like every Beach House album, you’re best suited to bask in the abstraction that results from the usual mesh of signatory warm synths and fidgety guitar lines, rather than attempting to latch on to a lyric or a snippet of solitary sonic genius.

80
The Needle Drop

On Bloom, Beach House does what they do best and continues to pen some of the best dream pop tunes out there today.

80
Under the Radar

Despite the album title, the duo picks right up where it left off on 2010's Teen Dream.

80
musicOMH

Beach House are equipped to leave the nods to shoegaze behind and embrace a far more holistic aesthetic – pop music. 

80
SPIN

Bloom is a gorgeous, firm album with very little at stake. 

79
Northern Transmissions
Beach House’s music continues to be great hazy dream pop with an atmospheric and nostalgic edge.
70
Drowned in Sound

For all their undoubted accomplishment, Beach House seem to have reached their limits as a two-piece, or worse still, have simply finishing running their creative gamut altogether. 

70
Clash

‘Bloom’ oozes simplicity, honesty and contentness. It will be a welcome sound of summer for ‘Teen Dream’ fans, but don’t expect anything too radical.

70
Rolling Stone

The melodies, guitar­scapes and thrift-shop organ swells make for exquisite comfort.

70
NME

There’s also pleasure in hearing a band do what they do so peerlessly well: croon sweet, sweet lullabies to console us in our fleshy prisons. 

60
The Guardian

It's beautiful, spectral, dreamy, but never makes your pulse quicken.

60
Alternative Press

Bloom’s lack of memorable moments is frustrating, because few bands are able to craft such achingly beautiful music.

60
NOW Magazine

Bloom is consistent in quality, and there isn't a single bad song. It just feels like they spent too much time worrying about production and not enough time songwriting.

60
Slant Magazine

The only thing that actually elevates Bloom from the linearity of its reverb-caked narcosis is the effort of vocalist Victoria Legrand, whose husky, melancholic voice provides a weighty counterpunch to the album's papery songs.

60
The Skinny
These are wonderfully written and arranged songs. But after six or seven of them, it all gets a bit samey.
60
The 405

Beach House haven't bothered re-inventing the wheel, because it keeps on spinning just fine.

60
The Observer

You probably only need the first four songs, though. Mid-album, Beach House seem to sink into a lull themselves.

60
Spectrum Culture

There’s still a lot to like about Beach House, but Bloom sees the distinctive aesthetic starting to wear thin.

60
The Arts Desk
Beach House’s fourth album doesn’t deviate massively from how they’ve already defined themselves: misty, shoegazing-derived pop with melancholy melodies and distracted vocals.
60
Tiny Mix Tapes

The high points are as good as anything they’ve ever done, though the hooky hooks and subtle gut-punches of these are couched in surroundings that teeter on the generic and the self-derivative.

50
Loud and Quiet

This follow-up provides more of the same with straight song writing and atmospheric arrangements that never really leave a mark.

50
No Ripcord

Bloom, unfortunately, becomes less interesting with the more attention you pay to it, largely because there is not much to set it apart from its predecessors.

ParthanyJobtano
100

an hour of pure eu-
phoria, is extremely
comforting like a

hot cup of coffee
in a snowy day, jumping
into the pool on

a hot summer time,
talking a walk through wither-
-ing trees in autumn

plucking fresh fruits off
and eating them (at) once in spring
simple things in life

JacksonLerner
97

many believe ‘bloom’ to be the best dream pop album in 20 years. it is ethereal, progressive, far reaching, journey like, and peaceful. it’s unheard of to have an album such as this; it’s been done by few aside from Cocteau twins.

in “the hours”, Victoria treats time like a landscape and refers to it as if it’s a traveling area. “the hours” magically subsists as a sleeper hit, the most underestimated song on ‘Bloom’. < i ... read more

ElectricMess
90

Few albums will ever be as easy to get lost in as Bloom. This album exists in a way that you can just turn everything else off, stop worrying about everything happening in your life and in the world, and just let the gorgeous and gentle waves of sound carry you off into a state of bliss.

92

Quite possibly the most surreal thing I've ever heard in quite a long time

KingMidi
90

Beach house hold a special place in my heart, they are the king and queen of dream pop. Nothing else in this genre gets me feeling the way Beach House do. This is a simply wonderful album with beautiful ethereal textures creating a heavenly place for your ears to experience.

gabrieldabriel
95

ascendant beyond the confines of reality ⁉️

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Track List

1Myth
4:18
97
2Wild
4:58
94
3Lazuli
5:01
94
4Other People
4:24
92
5The Hours
4:11
91
6Troublemaker
4:55
90
7New Year
5:25
90
8Wishes
4:46
93
9On the Sea
5:32
93
10Irene
16:57
Contains hidden track "Wherever You Go"
89
Total Length: 1 hour
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Added on: March 8, 2012