New in Music: Beach House

Beach House has captured possession of my earphones for the past few days. They're a great two-piece from Baltimore that draws a lot of comparisons to the French two-piece Air, due to their first single, "Gila". Their austere, playful sound does indeed evoke the two Frenchmen (whose music also enjoys a prominent position in my library). However I think they sound a lot more like more dark, gloomy bands as the Cocteau Twins and The Cure. I think what makes this band work so well is their successful combination of positive, curious harmonies of bands like High Places with darker, solitary melodies. For lack of better terminology, the best way I can describe their sound is "doleful sexy". Any further pontification on my part will probably do little else than diminish the talent and impressiveness of this band, so instead of reading any further (that means stop, now--no, now!) you should just go check out their website (linked above) or their myspace.