Beach House’s fourth album Bloom is the band’s fully realized sound in high definition.
On Beach House’s third album, Teen Dream, the songs were more ambitious than any of their previous output, but they expand on those ideas even further on Bloom. Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand’s typical instrument pallet, synthesizers, electric guitars, and drum machines, are still here, but they sound sharper than ever. They combine drum machines with the sounds of a traditional drum set to complement the more upbeat songwriting of Bloom. The album opens with “Myth,” an enchanting song about making sense of the world and maneuvering through the world’s truths and the world’s myths. “Myth” follows Beach House’s traditional song formula, but the song explodes at the chorus and it feels like a rush of euphoria that gives me chills every time I listen to it. Bloom also features songs with lyrics that are littered with psychedelic imagery, bringing out inspiration from colors and settings that seem like they are from Legrand’s dreams. “Out in the endless green, your eyes are so misleading, that’s when your car pulls up, its hood is black and gleaming,” Legrand sings on “Wild,” a song about being young and what you do with your little time on Earth.
The Beauty of Ambiguous Lyrics
The psychedelic influences don’t end there however, the third song on the album, “Lazuli” opens with an entrancing, repeating synth loop that is followed by lush strings and a simple, yet booming drum pattern. “Lazuli,” contains sentimental, reassuring lyrics such as the phrase repeated during the outro, “Like no other, you can’t be replaced,” which is a beautiful lyric that suggests that there is no one like this person and there is no value that Legrand could put on them. The song “Other People” is pure catharsis, its lyrics discuss the end of a relationship, the emotions you experience, and the process of getting through that period in your life. All of the song’s lyrics could be quoted for dissection in itself, but the lyrics of the second verse are especially relatable. “Heaven won’t keep us together, Right place at the wrong time, It takes all kinds of weather, Distant blue skies,” Legrand belts about the struggles of trying to keep a relationship together that’s not working out, no matter what the circumstances are. “The Hours” is the “heavy” song on the album, featuring some overdrive on the instruments. The lyrical themes of “The Hours” could also be considered heavier, as they deal with fear and uncertainty.
Ethereal and Swirling
Bloom gets more ethereal from this point on, continuing Beach House’s incomparable streak of making dream pop songs that float along seamlessly. “Troublemaker” ushers us into the second half of the record, with its light organ intro we are immediately sucked back into lyrical themes of fleeting love. “Someday, out of the blue, it will find you, Always, Always a face to remind me, Someone like you,” Legrand sings. Beach House likes to deal with emotions, and here Legrand sings about someone you love finding love elsewhere and being left reminded by them everywhere you go. “New Year” is one of the more upbeat songs on the album, with a truly magical sound containing shimmering, chorus-affected guitars that swirl around you as you listen to it. The lyrics detail waiting for something new in life and keeping promises about how you want your future to be and how the uncertainty that life has to offer might change such things.
A Strange Paradise
“Irene” is an emotional closing track that makes you feel as if you’ve been on a journey listening to the album, it feels familiar, but new at the same time. The lyrics feature repetition that reinforces the feelings. “It’s a strange paradise,” is the phrase repeated, and within the themes of the albums, it is easy to draw multiple meanings from this simple phrase. The “strange paradise” could be about the feeling you get after you move on from a past love and you experience the world without them like you once did, but a new unfamiliarity along with it. Bloom is a saccharine, peaceful album that any music lover should hear once in their lifetime, and Beach House created something beautiful again, I would score it a perfect 10/10.