The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Beach House · produced by Beach House · Sub Pop and Bella Union · about 84 minutes
Mode
Dream pop in the band’s settled manner, brought forward toward synth-pop, with live strings on several tracks and the band producing alone
Mythos
Fame as a distant light: the superstar, the masquerade, a funeral in pink, a runaway, bells, forever as illusion; images of the film studio and the love song
Phase
Eighteen tracks in four chapters of four, four, five and five, each issued alone before the whole was released
Presentation
Double album; eighteen tracks, about eighty-four minutes, released complete in February 2022 by Sub Pop in North America and Bella Union in Britain and Europe
Register
Slow to moderate throughout; organ, synthesisers, guitar, drum machine and live drums, strings; a low, even voice inside a reverb that covers everything
Scale
A couple and their longing, seen through glamour; one order of reality seen from many angles
Governing Proposition
A duo that had settled its dream pop across seven albums produces itself for the first time, brings in live strings and moves partway toward synth-pop, and spreads eighteen songs across four chapters on one claim: that love and fame are lit like cinema and are as unreal, a dream watched from inside. The haze is the meaning, the swell its height, and the record holds one temperature for eighty-four minutes.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
The record opens on strings and keyboard arpeggios that lift before a word is sung. The title track sets the light the whole record will be seen in: slow, bright, remote, everything inside a reverb, the voice entering as one more colour rather than above the others. It lifts at once, and it does not hurry. Within its first minutes the record has said what it will say for eighty-four, and its question is how long one light can be held.
It is Beach House’s eighth album, by Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, and the first the band produced alone. Sub Pop released it complete on 18 February 2022 in North America, and Bella Union in Britain and Europe. It is a double album, eighteen tracks in about eighty-four minutes, divided into four chapters of four, four, five and five tracks. The chapters were issued one at a time before the full release, the same tracks in the same order, so that the record was first heard in parts and only then as a whole.
The means are the band’s own, enlarged. Legrand’s voice and keyboards, Scally’s guitar and keyboards, organ, synthesisers and drum machine, live drums on some tracks and live strings on several. The tempo is slow to moderate throughout, and there is no fast track. The first chapter runs the title track, Superstar, Pink Funeral and Through Me; the last ends on Modern Love Stories. Between them the record never leaves its temperature, and the chapters, each with its own arc, do not build toward a close.
Movement II
The second track is the record’s summit. A synthesiser line climbs and doubles, the voice rides over it, and the swell keeps rising past the point where a song would stop. It leans toward synth-pop, and it is built with care: the low end restrained, the voice placed inside the texture rather than above it. Nothing on the record goes higher.
It also carries the record’s one sustained image. The superstar is fame seen as a star is seen, a distant light, bright and remote. The record returns to the image in other forms: a masquerade, a funeral in pink, a runaway, bells, forever as an illusion. These are images of the film studio and the love song, worn smooth by use, and the record uses them knowing they are worn. The dream it shows is a dream everyone has already seen, and its unreality is the point.
What the image discloses is felt more than stated. Love is a dream watched from inside, romance knows it is a performance, and fame and love are lit like cinema and are as unreal. The words turn on stars, nights, masks and forever, delivered through a haze that is part of their meaning, and the strings lend the longing the light of a film. The claim was the band’s on earlier records too. Here it is made at greater length and with a larger palette, and it is made most fully in sound.
Movement III
Over and Over is patience made into height. Long and slow, it builds without hurry to a summit of its own, and it shows what the record can do with time when it chooses to use it. Pink Funeral, in the first chapter, and Hurts to Love, in the last, reach a different height, cool and string-lit. Across the record the heights are frequent, and all of one kind: warm and dreamlike, never terror or grandeur. Repeated across four chapters, the same swell becomes expected, and the later heights land lower than the early ones.
The haze is the record’s instrument. The voice is half inside the mix, synthesisers blur into strings, and tempos are slowed until a song hangs rather than moves. Love seen as a dream is carried by a sound that is dreamlike, and the fit holds from the first track to the last. Scally’s arrangements keep their layers clear inside the haze, and Legrand holds a low, even register with control. The self-production is assured throughout, and the strings are blended rather than laid on top.
The same haze takes something back. The voice sits so far inside the mix that words are lost, and a record whose words turn on stars and masks lets them dissolve into texture. The programmed drums are often plain. And one palette and a narrow band of tempos for eighty-four minutes turn craft toward sameness: what is assured on any one track becomes uniform across the whole. The song forms underneath are conventional, and the songs would mean what they mean on any of the band’s records.
Movement IV
Masquerade, in the third chapter, names the theme in its title, as Illusion of Forever does after it: romance as a performance that knows it is one. The third chapter is the longest, with the fourth, at five tracks, and in it the record’s restatements gather. Sunset, Illusion of Forever and Finale return to a mode already set, slow, glowing and in one colour, as Through Me had in the first chapter. Each chapter has a song that could stand in another’s place, and each, released alone, stood without the others.
Still the record keeps one law everywhere. Runaway, on a drum machine, and Sunset, near acoustic, sit in the same suspended light; the orchestral title track and the synth-pop of Superstar share one voice and one slow swell. The consistency is close to total, and it holds across four chapters that were first heard apart. But the range it governs is small: one mood, one temperature, a few tempos, held for eighty-four minutes rather than extended.
The world inside it is narrow. A mind is held, as longing; a couple is held, the love song’s “I” and “you”, across many songs; glamour, cinema and fame appear as images with no world behind them. The family, labour, the state, history and the sacred are absent, and the natural order is a sunset and some bells. There is no place, no name and no event. The double length adds time and not orders, and what the record holds it holds whole.
Movement V
Hurts to Love, in the fourth chapter, is one of the record’s strongest songs, cool and string-lit, and it comes late enough to show both what the record still has and what its length has cost. Its beauty is real. It is also a beauty already heard, the same swell in the same light, and it lands lower for having been preceded by so many like it. The record ends three songs later on Modern Love Stories, and the whole does not gather toward its close.
The inheritance is the band’s own. Seven albums from 2006 had settled the sound: slow tempos, organ and drum machine, slide and arpeggiated guitar, a voice in reverb. Here the band produced itself, brought in live strings, moved partway toward synth-pop and doubled its length, and released the record in chapters. Each turn is real and small, and none leaves the manner. The wager was the length, that listeners would stay with eighty-four minutes of one sound, and the chapter release hedged even that.
The record is four years and eight months old. It was well received and widely streamed by the band’s large following, and it survives whole, first heard in parts. The band’s influence on younger dream-pop acts runs from its earlier records, Teen Dream (2010) and Bloom (2012) above all. Its reverb and synthesiser timbres belong to a style of the 2010s and early 2020s, and nothing in it is topical. It is a coherent record of narrow range, made with great care, that holds one light for as long as a light can be held.
Act III · The Twelve
Eighteen tracks in about eighty-four minutes, and the length is not charged; the test is whether the parts are required. The title track must open, and Superstar, Over and Over and Hurts to Love are the record’s strongest songs, which any version of it needs. Each chapter has its own arc and its own place in the whole, and the record’s heights are spread across them. The test bites in the middle of each. Several tracks restate a mode already set, slow, glowing and in one colour (Through Me, Sunset, Illusion of Forever and Finale among them); each chapter has a song that could stand in another’s place; and the release in four parts, each heard alone, shows that the whole divides without great loss.
Score: 7.5 / 10
What the record discloses is love as a dream watched from inside: glamour and stardom as illusion, romance that knows it is a performance. Superstar, Masquerade and Illusion of Forever name the theme in their titles, and the words turn on stars, nights, masks and forever, delivered through a haze that is part of the meaning. The sound discloses as fully as the words, and is credited so: the slow swell and shimmer make longing audible, and the strings lend it the light of a film. The claim can be put plainly, that love and fame are lit like cinema and are as unreal. Held back because it is felt more than found, seldom articulated as something that could be tested, and was the band’s claim on earlier records too.
Score: 7.5 / 10
Elevation is the record’s gift, and it comes often. The title track opens on strings and keyboard arpeggios that lift at once. Superstar is the summit: a synthesiser line that climbs and doubles, the voice riding over it, a swell that keeps rising past where a song would stop. Over and Over, long and patient, builds to a height of its own. Pink Funeral and Hurts to Love reach a cool, string-lit beauty. Held from the top on three counts: the heights are all of one kind, warm and dreamlike, never terror or grandeur; across eighty-four minutes the same swell, repeated, becomes expected, so that late heights land lower than early ones; and several middle tracks keep a level shimmer without rising.
Score: 8.3 / 10
Myth is evoked through the imagery of stardom and romance, and one image carries the record. The superstar as a distant light is fame seen as a star is seen, bright and remote, and the record returns to it in the masquerade, the funeral in pink, the runaway, the bells, forever as illusion. These are images of the film studio and the love song, and the record uses their wear as part of their meaning: the dream is a dream everyone has already seen. Held back because no figure carries them; the “I” and “you” of the songs are positions in a romance, the four chapters trace no descent and return, and the particular is withheld almost entirely, with no place, no name and no event.
Score: 7.5 / 10
The inheritance is the band’s own dream pop, settled across seven albums from 2006: slow tempos, organ and drum machine, slide and arpeggiated guitar, a voice in reverb. The turns are real and several. The band produced itself for the first time; live strings enter on several tracks; synthesisers and programmed drums come forward on some songs, toward synth-pop; and the record is twice the usual length, released in four chapters. The stake is the length, a wager that listeners would stay with eighty-four minutes of one sound. Held back because none of it leaves the manner, the chapter release hedged the wager, and the band refined its own proven path with no risk to its identity or its audience.
Score: 7.3 / 10
Change the form and the record loses a good part of what it knows. The haze is the meaning: a voice half inside the mix, synthesisers blurred into strings, tempos slowed so that a song hangs rather than moves. Love seen as a dream is carried by a sound that is dreamlike, and that is a real fit of form to knowledge, sustained across the whole record. The sequence is counted here, once: four chapters, each with its own arc, issued one at a time and then joined. Held back because the song forms are conventional and would mean the same on the band’s other records, the chapters are a frame of release more than an argument, and the whole does not build toward its close.
Score: 7.7 / 10
Four and a half years give little evidence, and the axis is forecast. The formal forecast is good. The arrangements, strings under synthesisers under guitar, separate on close listening and reward it, and parts heard as one wash on a first hearing come apart into lines on return. The band’s records have been returned to by a devoted following, which is the kind of return this one invites. Held back on the semantic side. The words are few, general and in part inaudible, and what the record means it gives on the first hearing: the mood is the content, and a mood returned to is re-entered more than reopened. Much of the return such a record receives is ritual, a loved atmosphere replayed.
Score: 7.7 / 10
The field is dream pop and indie pop of the early 2020s. Intrinsic force: the record extends the band’s sound to double length, adds strings and a self-made production, and moves partway toward synth-pop, which widens a manner without reorganising anything. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: the record was well received and widely streamed by the band’s large following, and the band’s influence on younger dream-pop acts of the decade is real. Held back because that influence runs from the earlier records, Teen Dream (2010) and Bloom (2012) above all, and reach that belongs to a band’s earlier work is not credited to a later one; nothing is yet redirected by this record itself.
Score: 7.3 / 10
Survival is weighed over four years and eight months from the full release, which is all the record can show. The form is whole: one edition, though first heard in four parts. Presence is continuous among the band’s following, in streaming and in concert; popularity is credited as presence, not proof. The fabric is charged: the reverb-heavy dream-pop sound and its synthesiser timbres belong to a recognisable style of the 2010s and early 2020s, and a surface so identified with its moment is what the axis penalises. Nothing in the record is topical, which lightens the charge. A young record’s survival, a little below the middle of what its age allows.
Score: 7.3 / 10
Command of the recorded medium, with the words weighed elsewhere, and the making is the record’s strongest suit. Scally’s arrangements stack guitar, organ, synthesiser and, on several tracks, live strings into textures that stay clear inside their haze. The self-production is assured: the low end restrained, the voice placed as one more instrument, the strings blended rather than laid on top. Legrand holds a low, even register with control. Superstar’s climbing line and the title track’s strings are built with care. Held from the top by faults of measure spread across the whole: one palette and a narrow band of tempos for eighty-four minutes, so that craft turns to sameness; programmed drums often plain; and the voice so far inside the mix that words are lost.
Score: 8.6 / 10
One law governs the record and is kept nearly everywhere: love and glamour seen through a haze, slow, bright and remote. The two most distant elements obey it. Runaway, on a drum machine, and Sunset, near acoustic, sit in the same suspended light; the orchestral title track and the synth-pop of Superstar share one voice and one slow swell. The consistency is close to total, held across eighteen tracks and four chapters released apart, which is harder than holding it across one side. Held from the top by the rubric’s warning: narrowness is not coherence. The range the law governs is small, one mood, one temperature and a few tempos, and the record holds it rather than extending it.
Score: 8.2 / 10
Judged on what the record holds, with no discount for the album form, and the axis is the lowest of the twelve. Consciousness is held, as longing. The couple is held, the love song’s “I” and “you”, across many songs. Glamour, cinema and fame appear as images, superstar, masquerade, illusion, with no world behind them. What holds the axis there is absence: the family, labour, the state, history, the sacred and the natural order do not appear, unless a sunset and some bells count. One mood joins what is present, and what is present is close to one order seen from many angles. The double length adds time, not orders. A narrow world, held whole.
Score: 6.9 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
7.7 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier III · Major
Strongest Dimensions
The Made at 8.6, then The Sublime at 8.3 and The Inner Law at 8.2. Arrangements of guitar, organ, synthesiser and strings that stay clear inside their haze, in a first self-production that is assured throughout; elevation that comes often, highest in the climbing line of Superstar and the patient build of Over and Over; and one law, love and glamour seen through a haze, kept across eighteen tracks and four chapters first heard apart.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 6.9: a mind held as longing and a couple held as positions in a romance, with glamour and fame as images and the family, labour, the state, history, the sacred and the natural order absent. Next above it, The Swerve, Pressure on Tradition and The Imperishable at 7.3: turns that never leave the band’s settled manner, a reach that belongs to its earlier records, and a surface identified with the style of its decade.
The Necessity Cap clears at 7.5 against a threshold of 7.5, exactly. The Coherence Floor clears: The Living Form at 7.7, The Made at 8.6, The Inner Law at 8.2, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet on all five: The Unconcealment at 7.5, The Archetypal Deep at 7.5, The Swerve at 7.3, Pressure on Tradition at 7.3 and The Imperishable at 7.3 each fall short of the bar of 8.5. The Universal Minimum is unmet at The Swerve, 7.3, Pressure on Tradition, 7.3, and The Imperishable, 7.3, all below 7.5; The Encompassed, which it exempts, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 6.9. Three of the five summit conditions are met. The work stands where its aggregate places it: 7.7, in the band of Tier III, short of the 8.0 at which Tier IV begins and of the 9.0 that the summit requires.
Basis · the album as released complete on 18 February 2022 by Sub Pop in North America and Bella Union in Britain and Europe: eighteen tracks in four chapters, in their order, about eighty-four minutes, by Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, produced by the band. The four chapters issued before the full release hold the same tracks in the same order; they are evidence of how the record was first heard, not a separate edition. Judged from knowledge of the recording and its reception; no recording or lyric sheet was in hand. Songs are cited by title and no lyric is quoted; the words are paraphrased only at the level of their images. The band’s earlier records are named as inheritance and as the source of its influence, never credited to this one. Facts that could not be verified, among them the dates on which the chapters were issued, the track timings, the arranger of the strings, the players beyond the two and the tracks they play on, the studios, and which of the record’s songs has been carried furthest beyond the band’s following, are not given.