Real Estate
Real Estate
(Woodsist, 2009)

It’s no coincidence that “Beach Comber”, the lead-off track of Real Estate’s self-titled debut LP, fades in. This is a band that has no interest in startling its audience. Instead, they opt to rise out of the ether with a ringing electric guitar that’s as calming as the silence it’s modestly nudging out of the way. A Genesis that empirically undercuts the Big Bang, “Beach Comber” is one of the record’s most satisfying cuts and does well to preview the album’s 40 shimmering minutes.

Turns out, as the mood unfolds over 10 tracks of drugged reverie, that existence is akin to a cloudy summer’s day, warm enough for casual exploration, yet tinged with an intermittent wind that guarantees you’ll need an extra layer once the sun goes down. “Beach Comber” may be a medium-paced, reverb-y stroll over the dunes, but cuts two and three paint the life aquatic: “Pool Swimmers” is a color-faded Polaroid snapshot of an overcast afternoon in the neighborhood, and “Suburban Dogs” lets you know, first and foremost, that its subjects “get afraid when it rains.”

Such lyrics, washing in from lead singer and six-stringer Martin Courtney’s gentle vocal tides, are easily discerned—an interesting trick, given that he’s not on the stereo channels’ front-and-center. Much of the frontman’s and second guitarist Matthew Mondanile’s parts, in fact, are soaked in watery effects, though their merits mercifully spare us swimmer’s ear.

The whole is an unassuming blend though, chlorine additives just making good old H2O taste like it’s supposed to, all of the idle bathers following the rules posted under the lifeguard. Bassist Alex Bleeker is even-spaced and non-confrontational on the reminiscent “Black Lake”, and drummer Etienne Duguay is, by the sound of his generally docile kit, an egoless timekeeper. The record almost seems engineered to sound as good on your tinny MacBook speakers as it would on the component-by-component Quadraphonic that mom and dad keep in their basement.

The quartet, despite being a quick train trip from New York City, claim New Jersey as home, as their song titles (“Suburban Beverage”) and tune topics (“Budweiser, Sprite / Do you feel alright?” goes the former) attest. There’s a two-minute instrumental flip-flop gazer titled “Atlantic City” at the halfway mark, and the penultimate “Let’s Rock the Beach” is a knowing hat-tip to an afternoon spent at the Jersey Shore.

That self-awareness shines most on the album’s standout track, “Fake Blues”, all crashing waves of sing-song guitar riffing, pitting indie rockdom against the day jobs that sustain it. “Now I sell shit on the phone,” Courtney confesses early on, “’cause I don’t wanna live at home.” To close out, he self-scrutinizes his musical motives just as keenly: “Well, it’s not as if I choose / To be saddled with these fake blues / But I’ve got to find a reason to write this song.” In the cut’s final, brief burst, everything rises: The guitar melody grows almost boastful, buoyed by a confident bass while the snare, the cymbals, and hi-hat pick up the pace like a reverse commute at true interstate speeds. In a sincere Garden State kinda way, it’s beautiful.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

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