Hopelessly devoted

Beach House’s 2006 debut album Beach House found a loyal following among fans of low-key, off-tune, ambient imitations of White Light/White Heat-era Velvet Underground. Critics, however, were less eager to embrace the monotonous, long and messy first album.
Devotion, the newest release by the Baltimore duo, refines the band’s original formula of fuzz and shimmery clutter, creating a happy marriage of atmosphere and melody.
Channeling Yo La Tengo or the Cocteau Twins, Victoria Legrand (singer/organist) and Alex Scally (everything else-ist) create a dreamy soundscape that is at once comforting and alien. It takes more than a few listens to break through the album’s shadowy reverb world, but a patient listener will discover the many virtues of Devotion.
Victoria Legrand’s resonant alto recalls the deep world-weariness of Nico. But Nico comes from some cold Scandinavian future where feelings are no longer required; Legrand still has a heart to be broken. Her pathos opens like a wound in the pleading chorus of “Gila” and the lovelorn la la la’s of “You Came to Me.”
Alex Scally jangles tambourines that were pop instruments in a former, happier life. When guitars appear, they’re sliding down into minor keys as mournful additions to the low-tempo blues of songs such as “All the Year.” Elsewhere, harpsichords, wind chimes, organ and a soft tap-tap of the bass drum all undergo the dust-wash of Beach House’s production style, lending the album the feel of a fresh discovery sitting in a musty box of your parents’ ’60s vinyl.
And therein lies the genius of the album: All the songs possess a ’60s-pop sensibility and would be radio-ready if only they traded organ for guitar and slow tempo for fast. A perfect example of this is the deceptively brilliant and understated “D.A.R.L.I.N.G.,” in which Legrand busts out an old pop staple by spelling the chorus, taking the listener on a soaring, pulsating journey with an optimistic organ and twangy guitar.
As Legrand tells one of her ghosts, “You came to me / in a dream,” and so too comes the estranged, beautiful and mysterious cousin of pop music that Beach House offers on Devotion.