Whether a fledgling summer peeking through the verdant foliage of spring or a bittersweet summer sodden and submerged in browning leaves, the eponymous debut LP from the irrefutably darling Real Estate was a consummate soundtrack to its every moment. They illuminated an already-radiant Primavera Sound in the urbane setting of Barcelona's sprawling urbanity eighteen months heretofore, while the likes of Beach Comber and Fake Blues could comfortably be associated with proverbial activities ranging from wistfully gawping out on horizons devoured by expanses of sea to rough and tumble on deserted sands, or with the kind of blossoming romance usually encased in fading Polaroids. Consequently it would've indubitably enhanced all festivals great, small, and all in-between. Except the New Jersey boys were seldom seen on any line up, much to the dismay of all to have spent their estival months scorching retinas from staring at the sun, finding sand stuck in previously uncharted corporeal nooks and crannies, and plunging into overdrafts while funding Polaroid film fresh from eBay. Possibly.
After a couple years out of the limelight, or indeed sunlight, Real Estate return with sophomore effort, Days. Just as each day is composed of contrasting light levels, emotions, feelings etc., the quartet too have tapped into a wider spectrum of sound and, perhaps more critically, seasons. Sure, the veritably autumnal It's Real still hinges on forlorn lyrics of names lovingly carved into trees in a verse that strings together homogenous choruses practically indigenous to Local Natives, yet their crystalline guitars chime almost despondently, cascading swiftly like the swathes of sepia that drift towards waterlogged earth around this time of year. For those not quite primed to loosen their grasp on British Summer Time, the instrumental saunter of Kinder Blumen is at hand to allay that pesky seasonal affective disorder, although the temporal arrival of Days is, whether intentional or inadvertent, altogether ingenious. Wonder Years is a little like the musical incarnation of a photographic landscape involuntarily faded by the sun's penetrative rays, wrapped up in a jacket of the quartet's quintessential reverb, opener Easy leans on prototypal minor key melancholia tinted with a shade of optimism, and expansive closer All The Same, rampaging considerably beyond the five-minute mark, documents distinct progression, as time signatures are periodically tweaked throughout and guitars swirl as if circumnavigating a plughole of the impending silence brought about as needle recedes from record.
A long-player to haul you through tenebrous days and darker nights, keeping your vital organs and ears just about warm enough to endure the most biting cold, Real Estate have conjured yet another effort to turn to all the day, and all of the night, all year round.
