Not a Hilary Duff cover…
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[7.29]
Danilo Bortoli: Upon its release, “Sparks” gave a wrong idea of what Depression Cherry would later turn out to be. More Slowdive than, say, My Bloody Valentine (their timing could not be better, really), and definitely emotionally rawer and more controlled than anything they have ever accomplished. Looking at the greater picture, it seems like a shot in the dark. A really beautiful and random one, though. Beach House have always aimed at perfection — a state of perpetual dreaming, that is. Considering this, “Sparks” is no different, but, somehow, it manages to dig deeper than their shots at dream pop. Maybe it’s the guitar carefully cutting through the noise. It could also be the pink clouds hovering above Legrand’s vocals, more distorted than usual, making the song bigger than the duo themselves. In the context of Beach House’s perfectly crafted dream pop, it fails miserably to make sense of itself — it’s too manipulated and controlled. But as a fully embodied gesture of greatness and what this duo can do, as a single even (and this is where the fun I get from writing for TSJ resides) it makes all the sense in the world that they would end up releasing a song so out of their comfort zone. At least once.
[9]
Alfred Soto: A talented minor band, expert at undulating niceness occasionally disturbed by rude chord changes. In 2012 I said while watching their Pitchfork performance that I could see Victoria Legrand in her backyard hosting what she’d call young people. She serves pitchers of excellent sangria and bowls of beautiful fruit salads. She wears long billowing skirts and goes barefoot. Boasting a louder than normal and more usual than normal guitar peal, “Sparks” advances Beach House not a jot but, boy, do they love Cocteau Twins and sangria.
[6]
Micha Cavaseno: Beach House have always had a tediousness to them, eternally waffling between true comprehension of Stereolab/Broadcast style evanescence and a desire to be a pop band. Either they’re too twee and poised or never dedicated enough, depending on which part of the shore you’ve planted yourself on. The guitar tease hints that they’re getting closer to whatever sort of balance they’ve lacked for so long.
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: Who knew that what shoegaze needed, apparently, was more organ? Waves of processed guitar, a clunky beat, a Hammond B-3 (or something very much like it), and vocals that sound a bit like Hope Sandoval with some grit add up to a single that sounds as if shoegaze never went away, and for that, we should thank Beach House. This is fresh as hell.
[8]
Will Adams: Like a glacier moving across thousands of years, “Sparks” is an icy monolith that’s hard to penetrate but gorgeous enough to admire from the outside.
[6]
Brad Shoup: It feels like watching a rocket bust out in stages. The heaviness “Chest Fever” organ concedes to lighthanded guitar streaks; Legrand’s gauzy vocal loop drops out in the middle, returning like the back half of a palindrome. Heft and haze, that’s what you want. This is a sunrise.
[8]
Josh Winters: Creativity isn’t a light switch you can turn on and off whenever you please; it’s more like a potted plant: something you have to constantly nurture and take care of before it wilts out in the sun. Creativity also isn’t a concrete, tangible object; it’s inherently abstract and ephemeral. You can make attempts to work at reaching moments of clarity, but it can only truly be captured when you know you’re able to seize them. The last time I saw Beach House live was in August of 2013 at the peak of their popularity, over a year after Bloom was released. They’re known to tire of playing their music near the end of every album cycle, and in a giant 5,800-capacity outdoor coliseum in broad daylight, it couldn’t have been more clear that they were out of their comfort zone. It took them a bit longer than usual to return with new music, and as the first song put out from Depression Cherry, “Sparks” is a bold reclamation of their creative essence. Under the cacophonous forcefield of soaring guitar, serrated organ, and cavernous voices lies an undercurrent of tension as Victoria navigates her way out of her soured vision in search for something new. It’s only until midway into the track when she realizes the magical nature of transience, how memories and feelings you thought were once lost can not only return to you, but also renew themselves. There’s hope within all the clamor and discord — “Make it, wave it, alive,” she recites with assurance — and that sense of reignited possibility gives way to a pure, beautiful energy, the kind that leads one to have strong synesthetic experiences. For me, I imagine sun rays on a summer day beaming into your eyes and saturating your sight, but I also imagine aurora borealis, a myriad of color flashing wildly in the still of the night with reckless abandon.
[9]