The speed with which Beach House’s sixth record follows their fifth, August’s Depression Cherry, might suggest a sweeping-up of offcuts from the studio floor. But though recorded during the same sessions as its predecessor, it was written as a distinct collection, and hangs together as cohesively as the band’s impressionistic style will allow. There are familiar shortcomings and merits. A certain wooziness has always been the point of the Baltimore duo’s music but at times its gauzy aimlessness drifts dangerously close to torpor. More often, though, it is subtly tethered to some elegant, insidious hooks, such as the spiralling organ riff of The Traveller and the velvety waltz of Somewhere Tonight.
