With 7, Beach House has done nothing to disturb their status as one of indie rock’s most consistent bands. They’ve done a whole lot, though, to demonstrate a willingness to reimagine what it is that Beach House can be.
This record, while not entirely “bizarre,” is either adventurously or confusedly all over the place (most likely the former). But wouldn’t you know—White actually sounds like he’s having a blast not having to be his usual self.
The record is big and colorful, its production drawing equally from hip-hop’s visceral impact and psychedelia’s strange weather, its pacing perfect and its songs casually bleeding into one another. It works so well as a big-picture record that it’s easy to forgive Monáe for leaving the edges a little fuzzy.
Now that every new release is considered to be a potential protest album of some kind, Con Todo El Mundo has arrived wonderfully devoid of any superfluous meaning.
This is a record that—subtly, subconsciously—offers some kind of solace while also invoking the unnerving and disquieting times we live in.
Wide Awake! finds Parquet Courts spreading themselves in multiple genres, developing as many formulas as possible for corporeal mobility—and by that, I mean not just dancing, but physical reactions, from excitement’s range of kicking and screaming to pliés of joy.
Sparkle Hard possesses a little bit of everything Malkmus does well, from heart-snatching guitar hooks to wistful ballads and psych-rock wig-outs. But Malkmus doesn’t stop there—he chucks in spare parts from disparate genres, and the unlikely hybrids work well.
Combining, as they always have, the irreverent with the thoughtful, the jittery and chaotic melodies reflect a nervous wreck of a world, one that seems to be in constant turmoil with no end in sight.
Freedom’s Goblin is unapologetic in its kind of just being a loosely curated playlist of fully-developed ideas. It resembles a best-of collection spanning unreleased tracks from Segall’s recent output.