Once Twice Melody: Beach House and Expressing Ephemerality

On February 18, 2022, Beach House released their eighth studio album, Once Twice Melody. The record is a rich conglomeration of the ethereal synth and hearty vocals that have outlined Beach House’s sound for the last sixteen years with an additional emphasis on storytelling and lyrical imagery. The album is the first produced entirely by the members of Beach House (Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally) themselves. While most of the songs on the album were written between 2018 and 2020, the band has also noted that some of the songs date back to ten years ago. Once Twice Melody is also a notably long album for the band, with eighteen songs total spanning across four chapters. Whereas Beach House’s debut self-titled album pursued a raw and nostalgic sound with a more intimate presentation as if the band were playing in listeners’ living rooms, Once Twice Melody presents itself with the grandeur of adolescent experience a la Euphoria. The album as a whole is theatrically dreamy, as if Legrand and Scally are presenting stories of love and loss through the rose colored glasses of youth and nostalgia. 

The album opens its first chapter with the title track, “Once Twice Melody,” which introduces itself with ethereal chimes before settling into a heavily reverbed vocal track accompanied by a hypnotic rhythm. In the following tracks,“Superstar” introduces a narrative of dreamlike romance while “Pink Funeral” takes on macabre imagery of mourning the love that has been lost while also depicting scenes of matrimony and intertwining the two together such that they are one and the same. These tracks introduce a dichotomy that persists throughout the rest of the album: the pain of what has been lost of a romance versus the joy of having it even just for a moment, all accompanied by grand and heavenly synth tracks and broad vocals that grant the album a sense of extending into something beyond experience, an exploration of the extent of love and longing.

“Runaway” is the first song that departs from the opening songs of the album and also introduces the second chapter of the album. Opening with an upbeat, isolated rhythm part, “Runaway” continuously approaches a significantly more electronic sound than the preceding tracks. The resulting sound is a fair bit of a departure from much of Beach House’s earlier works, while also evoking a sense of urgency and excitement. “ESP” follows and presents a return to Beach House’s classic, reverb soaked sound, while “New Romance” finds itself in between these two directions, with heavy rhythms, more powerful vocals, and prominent synth melodies. Yet, the concluding track of this chapter, “Over and Over” feels rather redundant, only distinguishing itself by a hook rather clearly inspired by Tame Impala while revisiting already prominent themes and sounds. 

“Sunset” finds itself right in the middle of the album as it introduces the third chapter and, after eight songs worth of synth heavy dreamscape, introduces a more intimate, acoustic guitar-based track. The song combines the nostalgic and simplistic style of 60s rock with heavily reverbed vocals and prominent synth melodies that sit just behind the guitar and act as an accompaniment rather than a centerpiece. “Only You Know” follows as the most upbeat and bright track of the entire album and brings with it a true sense of wonder and excitement, quickly settled as “Another Go Around” reintroduces longing, pensivity, and softness. “Masquerade” follows and also stands out as perhaps the most unique on the record, embracing a highly electronic sound that is much more staccato than all preceding and following tracks. This departure is both refreshing and sharp, as the song does not seem to complement other songs on the record and yet without it I cannot help but wonder if the album played through would sound entirely monotonous.

The concluding chapter of the album finds itself immediately in the dilemma of repetition of themes, sounds, and ideas the rest of the album has already thoroughly explored. While “Finale” is notable for its lofi beat and filtered vocals which introduce new sonic elements to the general aesthetic of the album, these touches do not save the album from concluding in a highly repetitive manner. While every chapter of Once Twice Melody could stand confidently on its own as a collection of seamlessly connected yet differentiated songs garnering intrigue, as a whole the eighteen-track album finds itself redundant by the end, as the dramatically dreamy soundscape begins to lose its uniqueness due to the sheer volume of the album. Overall, every song on Once Twice Melody is a considerably good song. Yet, as a collection, they swallow each other due to a lack of differentiation. If there ever was an album specifically for falling asleep while watching the stars, Once Twice Melody is it. However, for any listeners hoping for a more experimental direction from the band, Once Twice Melody may just disappoint. The album, however, is unmistakable Beach House, if not the most Beach House-esque album ever created by the duo, as the album leans heavily into the aspects of the group’s music that have kept fans engaged for years. Yet, it ultimately leans too far in one direction, with only sparse pauses of distinguishably new sounds.