Beach House aren’t exactly known for their covers, so the news that the Baltimore dream-pop pair swooned into a version of Weezer classic ‘Undone – The Sweater Song’ at a gig in Luxembourg last week (November 5) was surprising.
Even more surprising is the way they attacked it: instead of enveloping the whole thing in their trademark cloud of keys, guitar and Victoria Legrand’s nasal vocal, they stayed true to the snotty, jerky character of the original. OK, so the foggy opening could be lifted from pretty much any Beach House record, but once Legrand reaches the “And I die” line before the first chorus, the whole thing bursts into life. Alex Scally’s guitar squeals out over meaty drums and Legrand bobs up and down behind her keyboards, a mass of thick curls. Unlike on their own songs – where it often takes the form of another instrument, blending into the noise surrounding it – Legrand’s voice dominates. It’s backed by the other musicians onstage with her (including a yet-to-be-named helper who doesn’t usually perform with the band), but when she screams Rivers Cuomo’s lines, she overpowers it all. She did much the same in this 2010 cover of Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane’s ‘Lemonade’. When Beach House’s own material is so consistently similar in texture, this kind of thing makes for a nice change.
