Real Estate - In Mind

The Quietus

The old John Peel adage about The Fall being “always different, always the same” might be fruitfully adapted for New Jersey janglers Real Estate. For here, truly, is a band that is always the same; or perhaps more pertinently: always brilliant, always the same. Expecting them to change on In Mind, their fourth album, is like expecting Werther’s to change the recipe of its Originals or Land Rover to get into ice skates.

I mean, seriously: In Mind is the band’s first record since losing guitar lynchpin Matt Mondanile to his Ducktails project, with Julian Lynch coming in as a replacement. This might entail a fundamental creative shift for other bands, given the importance of Mondanile’s bright, jangly guitar to the Real Estate mix. But no. In Mind’s 11 tracks could pretty much all fit snugly onto 2009’s Real Estate, 2011’s Days or 2014’s Atlas.

There’s something almost avant garde in the band’s unshifting adherence to the same palette, all evocative threaded guitar lines à la R.E.M. or The Byrds, unfussy drum and bass backing and winsomely harmonic vocals, like Mondrian deciding that, yes, grids pretty much did it for him or The National performing ‘Sorrow' for six hours straight at the behest of Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson. Or maybe Real Estate are more like modern-day Kraftwerk, a band who can shed members and go years between releases but always produce music so perfectly, unchangeably, deliciously Kraftwerk-ian that it feels like an electronic comfort blanket.

That’s not to say that In Mind is a carbon copy of previous Real Estate albums. There are the odd quirks and deviations from the blueprint, such as the tricky time signature of ‘Darling’’s central riff, the electric chirp of a drum machine on ‘After The Moon’ or the guitar fuzz and Hammond climax of ‘Two Arrows’, a song that suggests long afternoons wigging out to The Beatles’ ’I Want You (She's So Heavy)’. But all of these advances are deftly subsumed into the pillowy welcome of the Real Estate world.

Somehow, Real Estate manage to pull off this circular career shuffle without ever becoming tiresome. There may be nothing particularly innovative about the band’s music but they operate in a niche whose unfashionable appeal never seems to age. Real Estate sound like R.E.M., Big Star or Teenage Fanclub, all bands with enduring universal appeal. But you simply don’t find many groups who sound like this in 2017 - teenagers, as far as I know, aren’t aping well-worn copies of Bandwagonesque when they get together to make their musical mark. Real Estate’s sound is - and I almost cringe as I write this - determinedly pleasant. It is eminently satisfying to hear their cleanly melodic guitar lines ring out underneath vocal harmonies of wistful appeal, a warm bath of musical enjoyment, more relaxing for me in its familiarity than any of Eno’s ambient masterpieces.

More importantly, perhaps, Real Estate write quite impeccable songs: songs that stick in the mind, songs you will whistle in the shower, songs that sounds effortless, whimsical even, but whose careful structures speak of hours of craft. These are the kind of songs that can mend a broken heart through sheer evocative power, even when the words add up to little more than a hill of nostalgic beans, songs that make an throwaway line like “there’s no place I would rather be right now” (on ‘Stained Glass’) sound like a fundamental emotional truth to be tossed and savoured. And In Mind is home to several of the band’s very best songs, from the gorgeous baroque of ‘Stained Glass’ to the dreamy yawn of ‘Darling’.

But it is ‘Serve The Song’ that perhaps best sums up what Real Estate are all about. “The chorus only interrupts / I sing to serve the song” singer Martin Courtney earnestly warbles, offering up what is almost a manifesto for this politest, most unchangingly introvert of bands. Real Estate are here not to break barriers, change music or bring about a revolution. They are simply here to serve their songs. And what songs they are.

Does this matter? Can bands get away with such guilt-free pleasures in an age as rotten as 2017? Is there any need for such musical fixidity in the age of techno, grime, R&B and shocking technological change? Does the idea of songwriting craft make you want to man the barricades?

It depends what you want from a band. There’s no envelope pushing here, no extravagant musical fusions, no narrative edge and no significant development on Real Estate’s previous releases. There will, almost certainly, be no Damascene conversions around I In Mind.

Rather, Real Estate are the glorious, self-serving epitome of “if you like this kind of thing”, a band who take being good at what they do to wonderful new heights, and are all the better for it. If you’re into self-flagellation you could call it s guilty pleasure. But, really, why bother? Rarely have a band so perfectly captured the nonchalant thrill of being beautifully stuck in their groove.

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Drowned In Sound 80

It's been eight years since Real Estate's excellent debut self-titled album, a record in which you could practically hear the Jersey shoreline washing away in the background of their suitably chilled out indie-rock, and it was to little surprise when Domino picked them up from their local friends Woodsist Records shortly after. The two albums since, 2011's Days and 2014's Atlas saw the band retain their initial sound, but utilise the bigger production values now afforded to them and saw their songs subtly grow in maturity and even a certain darkness bubbling over their staple upbeat 'surf rock' sound.

Even if there has been a fairly solid consistency to Real Estate's records – the highly catchy single, the guitar interplay, the surf-rock influenced production – the rest of indie music looks vastly different to when they first started out. Back in 2009, the world was enraptured with Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes and Arcade Fire (to name a few) and it seemed indie-rock music was here to stay. This mood didn't really continue into this current decade, however, as Kanye West, Drake and later Kendrick Lamar all released statement albums during a changing social period where all of Obama's post-election optimism quickly became distilled in a seething paranoia. While this is all pretty heavy going, Real Estate, for all their credit, have remained a consistent beacon in a genre which has become increasingly safe and irrelevant to social tastes and mores.

So how do we find Real Estate in 2017? They have resisted the charms that those original peers often have in moving towards a more electronic or R'n'B influenced sound and, on the face of it, released yet another solid Real Estate album, In Mind. While most bands and audiences would have grown weary about this by now, Real Estate's ability as songwriters have allowed them to only need to make small changes to their overall sound but still remain an endlessly pleasant and subtly intriguing act even on their third major label 'Real Estate' record. There were even some doubts as to whether this would be the case: one of the band's key writers and guitarists, Matt Mondanile, left to concentrate on his solo project Ducktails, meanwhile primary singer/songwriter Martin Courtney became a father, and bassist Alex Bleeker relocated to California in the interim.

Listening to In Mind initially, one wouldn't really understand what the fuss about Mondanile's departure was really about. Now replaced by notable local solo musician Julian Lynch, this still feels very much like a Real Estate album in the same vein and trajectory as all their previous records. There is the classic catchy first single (in this case, album opener 'Darling'), general goodwill vibes, and the same guitar interplay and production that makes Real Estate the esteemed band they are today.

However, as with any Real Estate record, one is asked to look beyond their initial sheen, to discover an incredibly accomplished and subtly progressive sound with repeat listens - an ability which keeps Real Estate the excellent studio band they really always have been. Even 'Darling' is fairly deceptive. It's big hook isn't quite as obvious as Days's 'It's Real' or Atlas's 'Talking Backwards' but it is there, burrowing its way into your subconscious with every listen, allowing it to join those songs company as another one of Real Estate's great lead singles. But even beyond that, there is beautiful 'White Light' which anchors the album, coming immediately after the psychedelic jam of 'Two Arrows' a song which starts as a cautious affair but sneaks in a threatening guitar line half way through before growing into one of the band's most explosive moments to date.

So like all of Real Estate's records to date, In Mind reveals more and more of itself with each listen. It has always been easy to dismiss Real Estate as a bit wishy-washy - that is a fair descriptor of their overall sound to a casual listener after all - and their live shows as they've played increasingly bigger stages certainly doesn't detract from that argument. However, the pleasant vibes on the surface of the New Jersey band's sound is what initially hooks you into coming back and listening to a bit deeper. They've played this trick before. Deep Days cut 'Municipality' sneaked in one of the band's darkest tracks - all descending minor chords - and they play it again here with the soulful country-inflected track 'Diamond Eyes' (which also serves as a small reprise from Courtney's familiar vocal range).

It is difficult to say what influence Lynch has had here - his guitar playing is fairly consistent with Mondanile's - but Matt Kallman's efforts on the keyboards are, while often buried in the mix, provide a grounding to the record throughout especially on tracks like 'Holding Pattern' or closer 'Saturday''s "ballad fake-out", and add up to another subtle trick which the band are so good at. Ultimately, there is a familiarity to In Mind which for some may seem a little too much of the same from this now 'veteran' band, but as with every Real Estate record, their collective ears for little surprising turns and touches in amongst their overall pleasing sound, is still impressive, eight years on.

The Guardian 80

(Domino)

Real Estate have never been ones for taking giant leaps. Not for them any sudden changes in genre, double gatefold concept albums or other signifiers of a band wanting to “expand their horizons”. Instead, the New Jersey outfit’s career to date has been one of subtle shifts, quietly refining their pastoral indie-rock over the course of three albums. At a time when the genre is receiving criticism for its relative timidity, such steadfastness might seem like a strangely risky move. But, as fourth album In Mind shows, this is a band who are aware of where their talents lie and are happy to stick to them; there aren’t many, you suspect, who could match Serve the Song’s iridescent jangle or the sun-dappled psych of Stained Glass. The moments of experimentation, when they come, are brief and understated: a frayed synth line on album standout Darling, a smoky burst of reverb on the droning jam session Two Arrows. But, for the most part, this is an album that maintains Real Estate’s status as indie’s model of consistency.

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When Real Estate named their last album Atlas, it was likely done both in earnest and irony. “It’s a subtle landscape where I come from,” sang Martin Courtney, as he traced the anxieties contained within the sidewalks, horizons, clocks, and shadows of his suburban hometown. The New Jersey band captured the way that a few square miles can feel like the whole world, but also intensify feelings of isolation. Their softly woven guitars had never sounded more wistful, the perfect accompaniment to Courtney’s ruminations of the divide between post-adolescent uncertainty and watching his life codify into an adulthood that millennials like him were never meant to achieve. He was so overawed by the sight of his wife next to him, and fearful of time slipping away, that you half-worried about how his temperate constitution would handle any truly earth-shattering change.

As it happened, Real Estate experienced something like that when founding guitarist Matt Mondanile left to pursue his Ducktails project. The split was seemingly acrimonious, though the details seemed less relevant than the matter of what it would do to their sound. Mondanile’s spacey style gave Real Estate’s compact universe a layer of fantasy and teased out the sweetness in Courtney’s flat tones. They replaced him with Julian Lynch, re-enlisted Matt Kallman on keys, and went off to L.A. to record. For a reliable band like Real Estate, these are dramatic transformations. But In Mind, the outcome of this revamp, picks up pretty much where they left off, Lynch’s guitar and Alex Bleeker’s bass swishing like windshield wipers around Courtney’s suburban koans.

Throughout In Mind, Courtney explores his sensitive relationship to his surroundings. “The laughing brook that ran right through this town/Slowed to a smile when the mercury went down,” he coos on “Stained Glass.” Plotting the progress from Atlas to the familiar and comforting In Mind is a similarly nuanced process. In the past, Real Estate’s sound hung like a sweet, gormless open mouth, but Lynch’s tougher guitar tone is a little more hard-bitten and yowling. He and Kallman team up on the intro to “Stained Glass,” knitting a baroque cascade that owes some to the Byrds’ energized arpeggiations. “Two Arrows” starts as a drowsy plod, the effects on Courtney’s voice mimicking the slippery space between sleep and consciousness, but then sidles into a respectful jam, one guitar pinging high, the other disintegrating with each careening phrase. Just as fuzz and hysteria threaten to overtake the whole thing, it ends abruptly in a rare moment of humor (and a neat Beatles tribute).

If you like Real Estate best when they’re trading in smaller gestures, these moves may seem treacherous, but by and large they crackle with electricity. The frame is fuller here, harking back to the mid-’90s production of bands like Teenage Fanclub, Jellyfish, and on the dreamy bossa nova fizz of “Time,” the High Llamas. This newfound density gives In Mind a claustrophobic atmosphere that mirrors Courtney’s myopic state of mind. Since Atlas, he’s become a father of two, working from home in Beacon, NY. Any self-employed person will recognize his queasy familiarity with his surroundings: the subtle changes that occur as dusk sets in, the comings and goings of local wildlife, the disorientating similarity of different sounds. “Was it the rain/Or a southbound train/That woke me up last night?” he wonders amid the starry swoop of the unfortunately titled “Holding Pattern.” At once reassuring and stifling, these details give a better sense of Courtney’s anxiety than his more literal lyrics on the subject.

Of course, one person’s quiet profundity is another’s cruise control. “What this is/Is not real life/At least it isn’t boring,” he sings on “Holding Pattern.” For Courtney, his well of lyrics about wistful cul-de-sac malaise never seems to dry up, though the subject starts to grow tired across the record. Likewise, when they wander from the beaten path they end up with “Diamond Eyes,” an Alex Bleeker song and In Mind’s only total misfire. In the vein of a Pete Seeger fable, or the Grateful Dead writing Sunday school jams, it’s so far outside their suburban comfort zone that it sounds like they’ve been brainwashed by a benevolent cult. “It’s a time to be humble/It’s a time to be free/It’s a time to raise our voices loud and not go quietly,” Bleeker sings, like Mr. Rosso on “Freaks and Geeks” trying to inspire his burnout students to protest peacefully.

In stark contrast, Real Estate's limitations become their greatest strengths. “Serve the Song” is a warped, wandering introvert’s lament. “The chorus only interrupts/I sing to serve the song,” Courtney sings, in a sort of peaceful Quaker hymnal and insight into the band’s MO. His touching, quiet shock at the disparity between his past and present hasn’t dimmed, as the family man looks back at the slacker and feels an imperceptible connection. “I cannot recall/Where I was at all/But I know what I heard/When I wrote those words/Green river still runs/Under that same sun/I never saw the source/But I know the course,” he sings on “Same Sun,” as impish, quizzical guitar chimes play up his bemusement.

Real Estate seemingly have no greater ambition than to perfect this one thing they do so well. While they live firmly in the middle of the road, they’re also dramatic outliers: neither explicit nor artful, two modes innovated by indie-rock when it had started to seem less relevant than ever. Unlike the effortless Atlas, In Mind exposes a trace of tension between form and content. For all Courtney’s synchronicity with his home environment, he sometimes sounds like he’s spinning his wheels rather than exploring the new contours of the recalibrated band.