Days
Another Sell Your Own Home PostDays
List Price: $ 5.99
Price: $ 5.99
Days
Days is a gorgeous suite of timelessly melodic, achingly melancholy pop songs and a delightfully confident follow up to 2009′s exceptionally well received eponymous debut.
List Price: $ 13.98
Price: $ 8.95
Related Real Estate Products
Related posts:
- For Sale By Owner
- How To List Fsbos Like Crazy – 05
- Real Estate Prospecting: Expired Listings and FSBOs
- Providing Your personal Property in 30 Days
- For Sale by Owner
- Real Estate Prospecting: Expired Listings and FSBOs
- Sell Your Own Home (“Which?” Action Pack) Reviews
- For Sale by Owner
- Plastic Corrugated Directional Signs
- The For Sale by Owner Handbook Reviews
Tags: Days
Reader Comments
A summery band takes an autumnal turn,
Real Estate is a band that hits the sweet spot between easy, ingratiating pop and obscure, ponderous post-rock. Their first, self-titled album hit me like a glass of champagne on an empty stomach, with a wash of warm nostalgia and sunny feelings. This one announces itself with the cover: a line of empty concrete bungalows under a gloomy sky. Still, above it all, the happy, retro “Real Estate” band logo floats reassuringly. And that’s how this album feels. The nostalgia is there, but while the first album seemed to be a soundtrack for a June day at a beach house, this one is the soundtrack for sitting inside that beach house, watching the sun set over a deserted beach at 6 pm, as winter closes in. The blue surf has turned grey.
The sound of this band is hard to pin down. They’re sometimes compared to the Beach Boys, but I don’t think that’s apt. Brian Wilson always put his melodies front and center, because they had to be heard and loved from the speaker of a transistor radio. This is a headphone band. They remind me a little of the Pixies, both because of the teasing, bright lines the guitar plays and because they tend to hide amazing melodies under a murky, propulsive wash of sound. That’s one of the reasons I keep returning to Real Estate’s songs again and again; there’s real beauty there, but it seduces you rather than throwing itself in your face. But unlike the aggressive Pixies, Real Estate conceals sweet surprises in their songs. There’s often a gentle rocking feel to this music. If you’re listening to it in the foreground, you’ll hear wonderful songs. If you keep it in the background, it’s lulling and uplifting. I find it’s perfect music to play when I’m up against a harsh deadline at work. It relaxes me while it drives me on.
Sweetly melancholy but never sad, “Days” is a warm, fuzzy sweater comforting you against the impending chill of fall — and reminding you that summer is always just around the corner.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Good Album But Five Stars..?,
“It’s Real” is a killer song, and there’s a lot of great stuff here but Five Stars? Really? I can’t believe these people are blind to this albums (few) flaws.
I’m from Jersey and I love to support a homestate band but this album is a true 3.5-er to me. I mean “Kinder Blumen” is just one of those really wandering instrumentals in an album that can occasionally get wander-y as it is.
Then again, “Green Aisles” is really fantastic too. Ok, I’ll give it four stars…
Was this review helpful to you?
|Best album of the year,
This was easily my favorite album of the year. Peaceful, laid back, unseemingly wise lyrics…just fantastic all the way around.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Strum-oh-strum-oh,
I’m surprised to be the first reviewing for this album here. It is 11-11-11 but ‘Days’ was released 10-18-11. Is this album taking a while to sink-in or is it entirely forgettable?
Given my five stars I’m definitely in the former category. But there is a catch. Yes, I think that this is an album that may take some time to sink in. When it does, you will find it beautiful and lovely. Every song will unfold like a little gem of blissful pop. Its liquid guitar melancholic swoosh will be enveloping and nurturing.
And yes, it will be entirely forgettable. This is music of the now. You will listen to it a dozen times, maybe more. You will then shelf it and forget it. Ten years from now someone will rummage through your catalogue (assuming you have such a thing) and will say: hey, what’s this with those houses? And you will say: Oh yeah, let’s put it on. ‘Days’ will sound vaguely familiar. Like, yah, I liked that song. That was good — strum strum strum — strum — Meh.
Whatever happens in the future, in the now, Real Estate’s ‘Days’ *is* beautiful. It is a lovely collection of songs strung together seamlessly with melodic hooks, soft guitars, and a dude who’s a little afraid to sing. Given how we consume music, if this album stays on high rotation for 2 weeks, it’s a winner. Thing is, it may take 2 weeks to fully grasp.
But is longevity the purpose? How many albums you come back to? In the Aeroplance Over the Sea? Endtroducing? Disintegration? Doolittle? Innervisions? When was the last time you listened even to those?
‘Days’ will fill-in the days between.
Was this review helpful to you?
|beautiful, wistful, fragile pop,
2nd album from New Jersey band of beautiful, wistful, fragile pop–as pretty and temporal as a
perfect summer day; just gorgeous, relaxing music floating by on a gentle cloud. Echoic guitar
notes caress with a comforting, flowing sense of “sameness” from one song to the next, exuding
a calming, hypnotic quality of grace. Features members from Titus Andronicus, Ducktails and
Predator Vision. Similarities to Felt, Orange Juice/Edwyn Collins, the Clean, Galaxie 500.
Was this review helpful to you?
|melodic, melancholy surf-rock,
Real Estate is a trio (Alex Bleeker, Matt Mondanile, and Martin Courtney) originally from Ridgewood, New Jersey.
The songs on `Days’ all feature a solid base and drum foundation. The band then layers on restrained guitar melodies with just the right amount of reverb, and then layers on vocals with just the right touch of an echo-effect.
Top it all off with lyrics with just the right note of melancholy, and you’ve got the Real Estate `sound’.
This is melodic, dreamy music with enough of a retro, surf-rock undertone to keep it from getting too cloying. I can’t imagine anyone listening to the opening 60 seconds of `Green Aisle’ and not subconsciously nodding your head and lightly tapping your foot.
The only song that really departs from this approach is Bleeker’s composition, `Wonder Years’, which is more of a folk-rock, or even a country-rock, song; but it also will have the listener head-bopping and digging the mellow groove.
The only weak note on the album is the final cut, `’All the Same’, which tends to go on a little too long, and hints that the band had to stretch things to create enough material to fill out their album.
Fans of reverb-centered dream rock definitely will want to check out `Days’.
Was this review helpful to you?
|