Top Five Albums of 2010, no. 2

Beach House, Teen Dream

Baltimore isn’t a city known for its friendliness. Or its beaches. But Baltimore-bred Beach House’s alluring Teen Dream feels warm and inviting. Perhaps the boy-girl duo harnessed a strange, foreign energy to craft this album, a hazy and hooky set of layered and luscious songs.

On the opening “Zebra,” organist Victoria Legrand’s subtle, androgynous vocal simultaneously demands attention and lulls into submission as guitarist Alex Scally weaves atmospheric lines into a tuneful tapestry. “Used To Be” builds and builds only to suddenly topple, leaving alone a subdued Legrand to breathily chant “any day now” over metronome ticks and keyboard swells.

Though suffused with a notable sense of calm, the album is anything but a sleeper. The music is transporting, almost mystical (particularly on “Lover Of Mine,” which finds Legrand channeling Stevie Nicks at her witchiest).

Of all the albums I bought this year, this may be the one I listened to the most. Its airy feel fits a number of different settings and lasts from start to finish. The set ends softly, almost unnoticeably, as the closing “Take Care” takes nearly three minutes to completely fade out. It’s a fitting finale to a cloudy, drifting album that holds your attention while unobtrusively fading in and out of your consciousness.