Beach House's most recent effort, 7, is their best project since 2012 "Bloom." "7" is their same tried and true blend of neo-psychedelia and dream pop while still keeping everything as fresh as ever. Beach House's new LP is incredibly dense and ethereal, almost touching on an ethereal wave and/or shoegaze at many points.
Beach House has recently changed producers, a good ideal concerning their change in sound. The difference in production helps a more gritty, shoegaze sound to come out as a result, in comparison to the more dream pop sound they traditionally play with.
Songs "Dark Spring" and 'Dive" are uniquely dynamic in their shoegaze type dynamics. Other songs like "Lemon Glow" are more on the psychedelia end, yet still manage to keep attention. "Black Car" is a more ambient track, and possibly the best and most interesting song on the album when considering it in the context of the album as a whole.
Certain songs like "Woo" can get a bit repetitive, but still don't detract from the album tracklist as a whole. In "Woo"'s case, for instance, it is still a very cute song, almost feeling like a warm and meaningful hug. Overall, the opposition of old and new work well for Beach House here, as they manage to not boggle the listener's mind too much while also keeping things quite new.
Beach House albums in the past have the tendency to be very front-loaded, with the songs in the second half being very boring in comparison. This is not the case with "7," as though there are of course some stand out tracks, overall the album is relatively solid throughout. The more atmospheric side of the new production helps this out, as it makes the album more cohesive and whole. In short, it seems more like one solid work.
If anything bad can be said about the album, it's that Victoria's vocals are rather soft, almost a whisper at times. This is something that has become a problem on other albums as well, and shouldn't have carried over. It makes Victoria's vocals and the music seem flat and not as passionate as it really is or could be. In Beach House's defense, however, this is a common theme in dream pop music as of late. Still, though, Beach House is usually better than the common dream pop herd, and shouldn't fall privy to factors like soft vocals as such.
"7" is probably a better score than 7, and displays Beach House breaking the slump they've been in since "Bloom". "Depression Cherry" and "Thank Your Lucky Stars" were not particularly bad but lacked the certain style and artistic statement that "Teen Dream' and "Bloom" had. "7" is a full return to this ideal.
