Beach House

Thank Your Lucky Stars

Even in the age of instant musical gratification, Beach House could be accused of giving us too much information with such prolificness, but the idea that you can have too much of a good thing is thoroughly debunked with Thank Your Lucky Stars.

It would have been a shame for Thank Your Lucky Stars to have been misspent or glossed over; as is, the full sonic and emotional weight is tremendous.

Beach House’s backing music is often the canvas for Legrand to paint her melodic moods, but on Thank Your Lucky Stars, all the pieces work not for each other, but with each other.

These songs feel pneumatic, dusty, like they are pulling a blanket around themselves in a heatless attic to ward off a threatening chill.

Coming so soon after Depression Cherry, it would be easy to dismiss Thank Your Lucky Stars as a mere postscript, but, if anything, it’s the more impressive of the pair.

The material here hews closer to those comfortingly terrestrial recordings than the weightless exercises they’ve indulged in as of late.

Interestingly, Thank Your Lucky Stars' more down-to-earth approach allows the duo to cover more musical ground.

Whereas Depression Cherry was filled with sound, dripping with synthy texture and surrounding the listener with guitar leads, Thank Your Lucky Stars is more open and spacious. There's more variation in tempo and instrumentation among the tracks, yet it all flows naturally.

Thank Your Lucky Stars feels like an opportunity for Beach House to sum up and celebrate the ways they've matured since their self-titled 2006 debut.

'Thank Your Lucky Stars' just barely misses the heights reached a few months before, its more simple nature ensuring it's unable to seduce the heart and head in the same manner. However, it's a damn fine record and manages to avoid treading exactly the same ground its older sister did.