Beach House - Once Twice Melody Album Review

Once Twice Melody takes the listener on a long and complex journey of serene and dreamy sequences interwoven with eerie interludes. 

Beach House consists of Baltimore duo Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand. The two met up in Baltimore’s indie rock scene in 2004, releasing the self-titled debut album Beach House, to critical acclaim in 2006. The band followed up with projects such as Devotion, Teen Dream, Bloom, and Depression Cherry between 2008 and 2015, receiving positive reception for each project. Most recently, the group released 7 in 2018 to high praise for its creativity and sound. Once Twice Melody is the duo’s 8th studio album, a refreshing addition to their already massive catalogue. The group is fairly well known in dream pop circles with their heavy and unique use of synths and overall sound. Words that I would say capture the spirit of their discography include celestial, spacy, melodic, and luscious. While Once Twice Melody very much follows in this tradition – it does indeed sound like a Beach House album, Scally and Legrand do something a little bit different on this project.

I think first and foremost I want to say that overall, the vibes of Once Twice Melody are surreal. It has been a while since I have been this enchanted by a dream pop project; so engrossed as to fully enjoy the ride that the group took me on. I can only further compliment this aspect of the project by recommending that listeners also try watching the visuals associated with each section, which can be found on YouTube. Hitting immediately with this fun, punchy, and melodious song that is the title track sets the stage for what is to come. “Superstar” follows as the second track, mellowing out the tones and starting the journey of floating while listening to this project. Interestingly, this is then followed up by “Pink Funeral”, a song worth mentioning for its excellent imagery, but also creepy meaning and ghostly sound. The third track almost plays as a nightmarish interlude interrupting the dream sequence. Despite these observations regarding the song, Scally and Legrand do an excellent job writing and producing it, finding a way to balance the melancholy, preventing it from overpowering the attitude of the album. Looking forward to other sections of the project, “Sunset”, sounds exactly as the title would allude to; peaceful and warm. I also really liked the contrast between the mellow beginnings and the loud and intense guitar instrumentals on “Only You Know”. Another song worth mentioning is “The Bells”, for the alluring sound captured across the entire production that personifies lying in a tall grass field, feeling the blades sway across your body as the wind blows. I would ultimately say that this is the swan song of the project, with “Hurts to Love” serving as an excellent climax, harkening back to the overall themes of love that permeate throughout the project. While the baseline of the production and hard techno sound differ from the majority of the project, it is absolute pleasure to listen to this song. I found myself entrapped by the layers of production and how they play with the vocals, especially on the chorus and during the post-chorus.
While there are amazing songs across all five “chapters” of the project, I would say that I enjoyed Part 2 the most. Starting with “Runaway”, the way that the synths produce a sound that personifies fleeing deftly matches the carefully written story about holding onto “the one who got away” and the feelings associated with that. The vocal distortion during the chorus really adds to the overall searching feeling the narrator conveys with their lyrics. This is immediately followed up by “ESP”, a magnificent love song and one of the most serene pieces I have heard all year. The guitar loop is beautifully romantic, an excellent complement for the background vocals and the melodic synth loop of a chorus. I think that the song’s description of feeling and experiencing the world through forces outside of the five senses by Legrand really ties everything together to create an excellent song. For this to be followed up by “New Romance”, a song about a couple that just cannot ever find simultaneous mutual attraction, continues the themes of the previous sections of this chapter. I like the way that the vocals on the chorus are juxtaposed with this darker, seedier synth. Additionally, the last section of the last verse, where Legrand sings, “My love drips in red out of my mind at the edge of the sky // You feel your heart break and you don’t know why,” I would say is one of the highlights on this album with how the vocals and production come together. While this seems like it is closer to previous works by the group, especially with the sound of the chorus and the pacing of the song, it is an extremely enjoyable listen, nonetheless. Concluding this chapter with “Over and Over”, all I can really say is just “wow”. This song absolutely blew me away with how galactic it felt. The group does an excellent job creating this ethereal and heavenly sounding production that elicits visions of sitting in a field gazing at shooting stars. Furthermore, as the lyrics recount the repeating burning of stars, the listener experiences this magnificent gaze at the end of life and an abyss of darkness. However, the song is so carefully constructed as to paint this as a beautiful event, robbing the instance of any sort of bleakness.

While so many of the songs were absolutely impeccable, there were a few that felt somewhat plain to listen to, such as “Illusions of Forever”. The first few sections of the album are incredible. On the back half of the project, the overall song quality remains pretty good. Unfortunately, I ultimately found that they did not necessarily contribute as much as other songs to the overall experience of listening to the album. More importantly however, despite my praise for the ways that “Pink Funeral” does an excellent job contrasting some of the more peaceful dreamy sequences of the project, there is a later moment that I am less fond of. “Masquerade” in some ways, feels a little too incongruent with the rest of the album. The overall song construction is similar in terms of what vocals and instruments were used to put it together. Yet, the song felt a little bit too forward and creepy to appear on this project. I do not necessarily find the song to be “bad” or “unlistenable”, moreso just that the feelings associated with listening to this song are adjacent to what Once Twice Melody puts forth. Taking both of these things into account, I would say that the overall problems of the album boil down to the fact that it is nearly an hour and a half long. The best moments on this album are catchy, soothing, and overall just beautiful. Unfortunately, the less impactful and odd tracks prevent this album from being absolute perfection. Nonetheless, I really loved Once Twice Melody, and have not been able to stop listening to it since I discovered it a week ago.

Favorite tracks: Once Twice Melody, Superstar, Pink Funeral, Runaway, ESP, New Romance, Over and Over, Only You Know, The Bells, Hurts to Love

Rating: 

Songwriting: 8.1/10
Production: 9.5/10
Project Cohesion: 8.1/10

Overall: 8.6/10

What did you think about this album, as an entire project or the individual songs?
Is this your favorite Beach House album?
Comment Below

I hope you enjoyed this review
-J