[ Overview ]

Existing in a world all to themselves, Beach House has meticulously built a dream-pop institution with the capacity to move the needle with each album. Their entrenched success and capacity to maintain relevant comes from never succumbing to the meandering trends of the outside world and always remaining firmly consistent with their musical reveries. With their fifth release, the Baltimore duo has delivered the world Depression Cherry – a defiant, stunning, and mesmerizing new album that is ultimately a vessel for the exploration of existential profundities.

Their delicate production, immersive sounds, and comforting croons carefully aim to navigate the listener to fall into a world of their own, where time stands still and you’re alone in your head. From there, the pensive lyrics lure the listener in and urges contemplation and reflection. Depression Cherry facilitates this process; as Victoria Legrand’s distilled lyrics carry deep thematic undertones of loss, love, isolation, connection, and most importantly, revival. From Space Song’s refined Romantic presence, “Tender is the night for a broken heart”, to Levitation’s tribute to commitment, “You blow my mind, I’d go anywhere you want me to”, the duo transports us up and off within a distant dream and confidently places us back to earth, feeling more euphoric than before.

Ultimately, Depression Cherry is a about a journey. The process of navigating through the dark, despondent portions of life to the junctures of light and rejuvenation. As the duo have cited multiple quotes to outline the narrative of the album, the most compelling interpretation comes from German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who declared, “Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things”.

With Depression Cherry, Beach House gives us this lesson in love and loss, as they gently guide us on an immersive and emotionally powerful tour of their realm, and bring us back down again, ready to take on the world.