Real Estate – Days
New Jersey’s Real Estate‘s Days was recorded in upstate New Tork through the late winter/spring of 2011 with kevin mcmahon (the walkmen, titus andronicus). Days is a gorgeous suite of timelessly melodic, achingly melancholy pop songs and a delightfully confident follow-up to 2009’s exceptionally well-received eponymous debut.
Comprised of nine new recordings and a revisit of last year’s enduringly wonderful ‘out of tune’ stand alone single, Days is the next step in the career of a uniquely close songwriting collective that feel more important with their every release. ‘days’ sees the band tighten and refine their brand of timeless, melodic and genuine music – consolidating the breezy sketches of their earlier work into considered, graceful pop songs. the songs are built around deceptively simple, cyclical riffs; caressed and performed with a rhythm and restraint that is atypical for a band real estate’s age. the instruments swim together, anchored down by bleeker’s firm lesh-esque bass, ebbing and flowing, occasionally enriched with flourishes of country piano, soft synths and slide guitar. several songs, like the album’s rousing first single ‘it’s real’ were written by courtney in the way he wrote some of his first songs, laying out their architecture first on a bass rather than a guitar, allowing him to evolve the song’s basic melody.