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Scuzz, we’d do well to note, refers to the kind of tape-hissy, petulant recording techniques which have been fashionable among hipsters of every musical shade for the past 18 months or so now. By definition, it’s a sound unlikely to conquer the airwaves. Au contraire: lo-fi for lo-fi’s sake can be an off-putting pose, and the DIYer-than-thou approach often finds its conclusion in merited obscurity. But Real Estate’s whip-smart New Jersey quartet offers a few pointers out of this dilliest of pickles.
On first-name terms with Titus Andronicus as well as the aforementioned Vivian Girls (singer/guitarist Martin Courtney is an alumnus of the former group), the combo pairs its lo-fi aesthetic with bracing pop immediacy to create a sound as vivid as it is chimerically vague. No sonic hip games being played out here – just terrific music, sensitively arranged. It’s the good kind of nostalgic, if you will; a sound instinctively reached for but consciously rendered in refracted sunset oranges and yellows.
The band’s West Coast-ish surf allusions put them a long way from their native Garden State, but their psychedelic chimes also sound like the Brit school of 1980s nouveau-jangle as embodied by the likes of The Smiths, Durutti Column and Felt. Pool Swimmers’ ebbing guitars are the spit of Johnny Marr at his most serene. And Suburban Dogs has the dreamy, coins-in-a-wishing-well reverb of Vini Reilly transposed to sunnier climes. It’s a great lyric too: “Suburban dogs bark at slow-moving trains / they run from your house and come back the same day / Suburban dogs are in love with their chains”.
Even at their most direct (Fake Blues) Real Estate sound poignant as sandcastles on the spring tide, with an unassuming depth not readily found in beach-bum contemporaries like Wavves and Girls. They've conjured a debut well worth getting your towel down early for. --Alex Denney
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Customer Reviews
Maybe it's because summer's rolling in, and Real Estate compliment the bright weather so wonderfully, but then this isn't surprising coming for a band who so clearly take influence from the Beach Boys. At the same time, this is not a record restricted to season. The watery reverb on the guitars, and the mellow atmosphere of the songs makes it perfect for relaxing on a sunny day, yet the twinkly riffs and delicate drifting of structure mean it could equally be an album for a day inside, looking out at the snow.
Overall the songs never come to any climax, but they're never meant to. Real Estate isn't perfect, but it's certainly lovable and charming in a very nostalgic way. Which I'm a damn sucker for.
I'm not much of a fan of "indie" rock these days - too much of it is horrible blokey-production-line landfill nonsense (like The Automatic - not to pick on them in particular, they're just an example of it).
This album, however, has swayed me back that way (just a little).
It's music viewed through a shimmery, summery haze. It has a slightly stoner-ish quality (though not in the sense of the equally excellent Holy Mountain - it's a far lighter record than that). This is carried through on the (admittedly daft) song titles (Beach Comber, Let's Rock the Beach etc).
The vocals are understated, the guitar lines spiky on a background of dreamy and all enveloping ambiance with understated (read: indecipherable - haha, not quite, but certainly low in the mix) vocals.
It's not particularly ambitious music (haha...I've seen reviews that are particularly scathing on this point) both in sound and its themes.
It was released in November 2009, but I think some of the songs, Beachcomber, especially, are good lazy summer evening songs.
Reasonable comparisons would probably be Galaxie 500 or Yo La Tengo amongst others (though both of these are far better). It's a sort of psych-pop, I think.
A good debut, not recommended if you hate indistinct vocals though. I don't mind - but then I listen to a lot of music that doesn't have any vocals at all...
"Until you find your rolex in the sand
You'll be stopping
Until that solid gold is in your hand
You'll be happy"
That line just clangs at the core of me. I have seen thm twice and both times they were amazing. So go listen to this album's entirety and enjoy a nice dose of sonic opium because this album will make you heavy.
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