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Beach House - “Norway”

The way it starts - mechanical drum machine hits and organ blast - makes you think that it is just another track off of their self-titled debut.  “Get out of 2006, Beach Hou…”  But before you finish that thought, the track has exploded.  Compared to their somnambulatory jams of years past, this track is Babe Ruth calling his shot in the bottom of the ninth.  Phrases like “hazy and ambling,” which once seemed so appropriate for their past work have no place alongside Victoria Legrand’s pant-and-yell chorus routine.  The woozy guitars are still firmly in place, and the organ is still the backbone of the track, but the drums have sprung to life and the contrast between the verses, which feel like stretched taffy, and the lush, powerful chorus provide a dynamic which Beach House has never achieved before.  This is the sound of a band stepping up its game.