Beach House 7 (Colv) (Ltd) (Wht) (Aus)

While Beach House's sound has always focused on hypnotic melodies and Victoria Legrand's rich vocals -- and likely always will -- they've found different ways to explore this potent combination on each album. Legrand and Alex Scally delivered some of their most dramatic experiments on 2015's Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars, which presented a surprising amount of sides to their music even as they stripped it down to the basics. If possible, they're even more committed to change on their aptly named seventh album. To make 7, Beach House opted to work with Sonic Boom instead of longtime producer Chris Coady; brought their live drummer James Barone into the studio; and recorded songs as soon as they were done writing them instead of waiting to record all of them at once. This creative liberation resonates on every track, whether Scally and Legrand build up the instrumentation or pare it back, touch on their familiar sounds or invent new ones. 7's sequencing spotlights just how