Kev Ryan - 8/31/2012

Beach House's last album, 2010''s 'Teen Dream', was a huge critical and commercial success turning them from a best kept secret to one of the biggest names in indie music. As a result their fourth album 'Bloom' deserves the tag 'highly anticipated' and is the first to be released with the pressure of audience expectation. In many ways it sounds like more of the same just a little bigger, tighter and shinier - which, depending on your point of view, might be a good and/or a bad thing.

Since the duo of Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand began eight years ago their brand of dream-pop has steadily grown from dimly-lit-bedroom size to something approximating a stadium version of the Cocteau Twins.They are a band who seem to have little interest in change or experimentation from record to record rather preferring to dive deeper into their obsessions seeking to polish and refine their sound. 'Bloom' begins strongly with three songs 'Myth', 'Wild' and 'Lazuli' which follow the Beach House template but with slight adjustments. The lyrics have much of the same listless, idle. nostalgic quality as before but there is also a lighter, sunnier feel. The songwriting is tighter and more conventionally verse-chorus-verse, while never really threatening to have hooks. Scally's guitar arpeggios and synth lines seem to gleam even more sharply and sparkly and Legrand's deep,woozy vocals and long drawn-out notes soar skywards in even more epic fashion.

As the album continues however it becomes an increasingly frustrating and oddly un-engaging listen. There is a repetitive mid-tempo quality to the the songs which yields diminishing returns and every track seem to start in the same quiet and stately manner before building in a similar way. Some will respond to the slow burn quality but many will yearn for 'Bloom' to occasionally burst into flame and provide a little heat. Only 'Wishes' and the thrumming closer 'Irene' have the force to wrestle back a listener's full attention. 'Bloom' probably works best as an intimate headphones album where the glacial shimmery layers of sound can envelope the listener in their own private soundscape - as the repeated refrain of the pulsing final track says, 'it's a strange paradise'.

Despite the album's weaknesses you'd need a very hard heart not to find something to enjoy in 'Bloom'. Devoted fans will lap it up and for newcomers it's an ideal introduction to the Beach House sound. For the rest though there is little new or essential here. If you already own 'Teen Dream' it might be enough to download a couple of the best tracks just to add a little epic dream-pop to your summer playlist.