The 2006 self-titled debut from Baltimore duo Beach House is one of my favorite albums of recent memory. You know how people sometimes use “warm blanket” as a descriptive term for music? Well, Beach House are a cold blanket: icy, chilling, covering, and you know if you lay under it long enough your body heat will warm that sucker up.

There’s just something so haunting about the way singer Victoria Legrand’s voice melts with the music. Garnering comparisons to sparse, shoegazing masters like Mazzy Star and Galaxie 500, if “Gila” is any indication, their new album Devotion (out February 26th on Carpark Records) will easily be one of the best of ‘08, no doubt showing up near the top of more than one critic’s year-end list (myself included).

MP3:
Beach House - Gila