It took me forty-nine-and-a-half minutes for Beach House to convince me that they’re one of the best things happening in music right now. Not just indie music, not just American music, not just music worthy of touring with Vampire Weekend, but all music, period.

Every pull of guitar, every rattling drumbeat, every strung-out word layered over each track like honey: sweet and perfect and utterly natural. There is no chord out of place, and the songs flow into each other to create the ultimate listening experience.

Though one wouldn’t call Beach House’s music heavy, there is something sorrowful beneath the surface of many of Teen Dream’s tracks. “Walk in the Park” sounds like a sad poem echoing into a canyon: “In and out of my life/you would slip from my mind/In a matter of time.” “Used To Be” is a little lighter, though the lyrics carry as much disappointment: “You are coming home/Are you still alone?/Are you not the same as you used to be?/Don’t forget the nights/when it all felt right.”

Beach House awakens a part of the listener he would rather forget, but that must be faced at some point — the painful beauty that is loving, losing then moving on.