Beach House: "Elegy to the Void"
Beach House have always been an out-of-time band, but “Elegy to the Void” places them in a great tradition. People have been making art about The Void forever, from French painter Yves Klein’s spectacular 1958 gallery of nothing to the Voidoids’ “Blank Generation”. The Void and all that it implies—gaping emotional black holes, oblivion, death—might be the simplest and most intense philosophical idea ever. Nothingness can be absurdly affecting.
Considering this band’s career-long fascination with mortality (what Beach House fan hasn’t sought refuge in their catalog during a personal crisis?) it’s a bit bewildering that it took an out-of-nowhere sixth LP to get to “Elegy to the Void”. But Beach House said Thank Your Lucky Stars is a more “political” album, and maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that a Baltimore band as emotionally-attuned as Beach House would be working within more urgent territory.
“Elegy to the Void” creeps in slow, circling on the twilight axis of Victoria Legrand’s deep voice and a low string section. Its effect is like a gravitational vacuum, gently pulling you into a world of vast uncertainy with a “black clock looming.” Legrand sings like a knowing guide, a North star: “To your sons and daughters/ Bending at the altar/ Don’t you disappear in the mirror again.” A familiar drum chugs in, a guitar rips through with heavenly scratches of feedback, and suspended grief becomes pummeling light. With that, “Elegy to the Void” turns from an ode-to-emptiness into a crucial instructive: thank your lucky stars for everything.
Recent Comments