Cloud Nothings - Cloud Nothings (2011, Carpark)

RIYL = Built To Spill, Wavves, Pinkerton-era Weezer

There’s not much that can be said about this album that hasn’t already been said about a million like-minded pop albums. This should be enough: Cloud Nothings makes me feel like a teenager; crush-happy, ridiculous, lovesick, hyper, listless. Congratulations to Cloud Nothings for being able to bridge the gap from a string of promising EPs to an actual honest-to-goodness great full length. Heaven knows that’s not always the case (I'm looking at you Voxtrot). Cloud Nothings: power-chord blitzing, air guitar inciting, perfect-for-car-rides-to-nowhere/the-beach indie pop/power-punk – something for the teenager in all of us.

Beach House - S/T

Beach House
Beach House
(2006, Carpark)
8.5/10

Beach House’s self-titled debut is sugary dream pop nostalgia that melts in the mouth of your ears, tingling your every sense. Beach House is a Baltimore duo consisting of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally. The lush, weighty vocals of Legrand are the real center piece of this hallucinogenic ear candy. There is something slightly haunting to the cobwebs strewn throughout Beach House’s debut. It’s something about Legrand’s tone, its unnoticed manipulation. Along with Scally’s accompaniments, Legrand’s deep, entrancing yarns slowly mummifying its listeners into eternity, yet it is so slight in its otherworldliness that you are hardly aware you are away from home. Subtly and slowly charming, Beach House sits you down on the back porch to watch the waves roll in and the sun slowly fade into the pink-orange horizon. And its there you sit with a glazed smile, the most willful victim of a beautiful dream pop horror.

-Mr. Thistle

Beach House - Master of None