Love Story

Norway’s stellar atmosphere and its unfolding layers charm you instantly and what could be a lifetime. They creep in your bone marrow and Victoria Legrand’s Nico-like voice replaces your blood. It’s almost crazy that music can have such an effect. But Beach House, with their shyness, were always the kind to create moving tunes that turn out to be perfect bittersweet gems.

Norway is the most nervous piece on Teen Drama. It boils, it runs up and down, it has the most obvious feeling that any minute now something will crack or someone will have a breakdown. Not that when Legrand sings on the rest of the album, her heart’s not trying to pound out of her chest. But no, on a closer inspection, it’s not her heart, it’s the albums heart. And each song, with the chiming cymbals and blooming musical textures, seems to be a heartbeat.

But Teen Dream is quiet and clam, not once letting despair win. Each broken hint of disco and each polished edge makes it strangely solar. Each ghostly piano note gives the album a pureness that seems so rare these days. And, timid as it may be, the duo’s music oozes an incredibly sexuality, with each guitar crescendo leaving place for what could the breaths and murmurs of a shy lover.

“I’ll take care of you/If you ask me to” sings Victoria as the album draws to an end and it sounds by no means stupid or childish: it’s naïve and heartfelt even heart-wrenching. A fitting end for a majestic and tender album that paints the story of a young love. An album that will find its way into many people’s hearts and could easily be one of this decade’s best releases.