Beach House plays woozy ambient music that drifts into would-be shoegaze swirl when the weather churns. Trails of vocals give Beach House murmurings the shape of songs, but the duo from Baltimore favors texture over tightness on its strong eponymous debut. On last year’s Devotion, a more self-assured Beach House finds the balance between studio layering and memorable songcraft on 11 tracks of gentle dream-pop (including a cover of Daniel Johnston’s “Some Things Last A Long Time”) that call for late-night meditation.
Updated 03/13/2009