Critical Voices: Real Estate, Days

Brooklyn-based Real Estate is due for some attention. After a pristine debut album, the group has made a smooth transition into its sophomore release, Days, solidifying Real Estate as one of the chillest, melodically pleasing bands around. Although it’s not a significant improvement from the first LP, Days’s fresh material possesses a lackadaisical charm that splits the difference between ‘60s surf-pop and modern indie.
Real Estate’s guitar work is spacy and shimmering, hovering over walking bass patterns in a way that gives their music a light, almost hypnotic quality.
The album kicks off with “Easy,” a nostalgic track pining for days when life wasn’t so hard. The subject has a twinge of melancholy, but the instrumentation sounds like the band recorded while binging on rainbows and weed. If life’s getting harder for Real Estate, it hasn’t influenced their melodies.
“Easy” is one of the most pleasing songs on Days, making it an appropriate introduction to the LP. Later down the line “It’s Real” speeds up the tempo a notch, and its sweet harmonies and bright vocals find the band in their most natural element. Not that Days ever really strays from that element—eventually all that reverb mixes the songs into a homogenous, indistinct swirl. But that’s part of the appeal. It’s naptime beach music, the soundtrack to a siesta in a hammock.
While it’s hard for individual tracks to stick out, “Kinder Blumen,” an instrumental interlude, makes you wonder if Real Estate has ever considered going into the indie soundtrack industry. The rest all blends together before, as even Harold Camping could have predicted, album closer “All the Same” finishes Days off without a bang.
Days comes off as a continuous stream of mellow hodgepodge, but Real Estate knows nothing else. While a mix-up here and there would not have hurt, Days is unequivocally an atmospheric album, a conscious choice from a band that’s main draw is its listenability—you won’t find yourself pushing the next button on any of these songs. But if you’re taping your eyelids open in your car at five in the morning, stick to some Zeppelin—Real Estate will not claim any responsibility if you wake up in a ditch with Days playing on your stereo.