Beach House’s Thank Your Lucky Stars came as a bit of a surprise. Just two months before, Beach House had released the sorrowful Depression Cherry. Thank Your Lucky Stars seems to venture back into their days of Devotion (2008), yet it seems to delve into an even darker, space-like place. Lead singer, Victoria Legrand, sings with a raspy solacing voice, that doesn’t even need lyrics to communicate. Every track resembles a sorrowful lullaby.

Depression Cherry produces a bittersweet nostalgia, a homesickness for a place unknown. It speaks of the complete blissful arrogance of youth, of tragic love, the heartache of suppressing one’s inner self, with heavy emotion that can only be executed so wonderfully by Beach House. It allows one to feel all this sadness, but turns it into something poetic and beautiful.

Depression Cherry feels simultaneously like my soul is being punctured with affinity, yet at the same time it sends pulsating waves throughout my body. It produces such sweet emotion, one can experience Legrand’s whimsical sadness permeating through the entire album. Like Beach House’s previous albums Bloom (2012) and Teen Dream (2010), Depression Cherry allows one to step into another mind; a misty, lulling, surreal place that is so sad yet so comforting.

Warbling vamped keyboard accompanied by slow, rhythmic drums, with a smooth synth floating with Legrand’s mystical voice is like going on a mind trip. However, unlike the open romanticism that is posed in their previous albums and Depression Cherry, Thank Your Lucky Stars is more bleak, more raw. It speaks with a chillier undertone, like throwing a blanket over one’s shoulders in a drafty attic.

Thank Your Lucky Stars is stripped of the comforting aspect of Beach House. It is raw emotion. It’s like breaking down and crying as opposed to drifting off into daydreams to escape reality.

Together, the two albums create a masterpiece– Depression Cherry, displaying the cloudy, heartbreaking mysticism in Legrand’s sadness, and Thank Your Lucky Stars, heavy with melancholy sentimentality. The two combine to create an emotional wave that hits you hard and leaves a lasting impression.

I recommend listening to them both on a rainy day, lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling, contemplating life and the cosmos.
Depression Cherry came out on Aug. 28, 2015, and Thank Your Lucky Stars on Oct. 16, 2015