On Beach House’s self-titled debut, the Baltimore duo of Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand captured the melancholy air of summer’s fade into autumn. It was a beautiful, bittersweet record and a promising debut.
With the duo’s follow-up, Devotion, Beach House conjures feelings of a different time and place on a wide scale. The volume on Devotion is low, undistorted, and the tone is sedate. Shadows of The Velvet Underground and Mazzy Star loom over the eleven songs. There are traces of Dusty Springfield’s blue-eyed Memphis soul, boosting these dreamy melodies with joyful sweetness.