Real Estate‘s new video for ‘It’s Real’ will appeal to those who rank their furry friends highly. Watch it below. You can read John’s review of their latest album ‘Days’ here.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HWcViTXdYc[/youtube]
Real Estate cemented their place on the indie circuit with their self-titled debut, a record which brought almost brought you back to the surf rock days of the Beach Boys and no, not in that sucky way in which the Drums now do it. Tracks like ‘Beach Comber’ and ‘Pool Swimmers’ were fantastically written gems that had you swaying from beat #1. Now comes the tricky second album that comes after you do well first time out.
Alex Bleeker, Martin Courtney, Matthew Mondanile and Jonah Mauer have gone along the same lines with their next record ‘Days.’ It’s as chilled as, well excuse the simile, a big freezer. But sadly it doesn’t live up to expectations. There’s a point where sounding like you aren’t putting effort in at all just ends up sounding lazy. Sure, the slowly rising guitars are still there and it does get your feet tapping, but it’s hard to sense any kind of development in this band.
‘Green Aisles’ follows the same formula for success they found on their debut in being completely inoffensive to the ears, but just never managing to thrill or excite in the ways they managed earlier in their short career. The harmonies in ‘It’s Real’ rush from beautiful to the downright tragic and manage almost to bore me to sleep. There is no better way of describing this album then boring it seems. While the production and musicianship is flawless it just lacks that edge to make it exciting and that is where I feel Real Estate’s downfall will eventually be.
One of the redeeming points of this album is track ‘Kinder Blumen,’ with its casually beautiful instrumental climaxes with a fantastic catastrophe of sound. Bar this though, it’s hard to find merit with this album, it’s obvious that a lot of work has been put into the record as the craftsmanship is sublime. What they now need is a changeup, an X Factor. What that could be, I don’t know, but for sure it seems that it’s back to the drawing board for these surf-poppers from New Jersey.
Better luck next time boys.
4/10
Real Estate’s second album ‘Days’ is out today on Domino.
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