This clean, punchy track is a little unusual for Memoryhouse, whose songs tend to lean more towards the fuzzy and ambient side of things. It’s certainly still distinctly them. The verse and chorus melodies are sleek and professional. The guitars are soaring with reverb and the entire arrangement gives you the vague feeling you’re floating on a cloud or stoning out by the bonfire. But this cut has a bit more of a full-band feel and notches up the cheerfulness to the admittedly still low levels of Head on the Door-era Cure. And all the better for it, because letting the guitars clip and pepping up the tempo every once in a while is probably the best way for the Canadian duo to counter frequent comparisons to a certain other duo who happen to share with them a label and half a name.
Beach House certainly looms large these days, and any girl/boy combo playing drowsy pop will, in the eyes of critics and fans, likely find themselves fighting to get out of that group’s shadow. But in the case of Memoryhouse, despite their inexplicably shooting themselves in the foot with the choice of name, the designation as pure knockoff isn’t really deserved. Sure, most of their songs are very pretty and about love and loneliness. And sure, most of them are short and slow, with the vocals buried in the mix behind indistinct, cavernous guitar and keyboards. But no one could reasonably accuse Denise Nouvion of having a similar voice to Victoria Legrand, or even attempting to do the same things with it. Nouvion’s vocal stylings, in fact, are probably Memoryhouse’s biggest attraction. Like many male singers, she makes up for an apparent lack of traditional range with a distinct delivery. The vocals are fairly flat and sharply enunciated, at times almost bordering on a Southern drawl. It’s surprising she hasn’t drawn more comparisons to Jenny Lewis, who’s clearly an inspiration. But, whatever the influences, Memoryhouse are making accomplished music that, if you let it, easily stands on its own.