Depression Cherry is the fifth album from Baltimore duo Beach House. In the words of vocalist Victoria Legrand and guitarist Alex Scally, the album is “a colour, a place, a feeling, an energy,” that describes the places you arrive at as “you move through endless, varied trips of existence.”
And it’s true, the sense of dreamy, wistful journeying that was present in the band’s previous two LPs, Bloom and Teen Dream, continues. Though, this time they’re focused on simpler sounds.
Opening track, Levitation, hovers gently at the top of the album, neatly heralding the sonic downsizing. In Space Song, a delicate melody hypnotically hums along, broken only occasionally by the repeated chorus lyrics, “Fall back in to place/ Fall back in to place.” You get the feeling the fall into space will eventually follow, but it never does, giving the song a wholly surreal character.
PPP opens by asking, “Out in the heartland/ I looked in your eyes and I asked/ Are you ready?/ Ready for this life?” This song unfurls a series of similar questions, commenting on love, responsibility and faults. Encased in a sweet melody, the pragmatism of the lyrics forms an interesting contrast.
The final track, Days of Candy, features eight singers from Hattiesburg, Mississippi’s Pearl River Community College contributing to a 24-part harmony. Midway through the song comes the repeated line, “Just like that, it’s gone.” It could be the lyrics, or maybe the knowledge that the album is, after nine songs, drawing to a close, but this refrain adds a cathartic quality. In Days of Candy, you’re saying farewell to a friend. It’s a stunning and moving end to the album, and another extraordinary display from Beach House.
BY IZZY TOLHURST
