Review Summary: An unexpected rejuvenation
It’s always sad when a favorite artist loses the plot. For me, Real Estate was a prime example of this phenomenon, with their periodic output in the last ten years showing a seemingly irreversible drift into mediocrity. As such, I planned to review the band’s sixth LP,
Daniel, more with foreboding than anticipation. Indeed, despite my best efforts to avoid preconceived notions about upcoming albums, I’ll admit that in my head I even had a snarky review summary picked out - “
turns out that Real Estate is actually a depreciating asset” - for when the album inevitably turned out to be the group’s fourth-straight release which was worse than the one before it.
For what it’s worth, I don’t actually hate any of those previous three releases. 2017’s
In Mind or 2020’s
The Main Thing (or even the very iffy 2021 EP
Half A Human), on their own merits, are fairly decent, pleasantly chill with some highlight tracks. Their problem is that prime-era Real Estate was basically the same, just far better. At their peak, that is to say
Days or
Atlas, the shtick was simply that, out of the myriad artists making chill-as-fuck jangly little indie pop tunes, they were one of the best by virtue of superior catchiness and an engagingly malaise-capturing sense of mood. When, after 2014, this magic dissipated quickly through lack of sufficient hooks and vibe, it was immediately clear the band no longer stood above the level of their competition, and I was afraid that change was permanent - “
the feeling’s gone and I just can’t get it back”, in the words of the great Gordon Lightfoot.
But something strange happened along this familiar road to nowhere: it turns out that new album
Daniel marks an unexpected rejuvenation for this New Jersey band. The record’s headlining fact is that Daniel Tashian, previously noted for producing Kacey Musgraves’
Golden Hour, has been brought in for production duties. In truth, the production here is well-executed, but doesn’t strike me as dramatically different from that on Real Estate’s previous outings, but the shakeup nonetheless seems to have done the band some real good. For one thing, this new LP features the collective’s most overtly memorable and catchy tunes in a long while, while the album also feels quite coherent and flows well. In addition, Tashian’s Nashville background seems to have rubbed off a bit on Real Estate - while the band has occasionally incorporated country/folk tendencies on a handful of songs before, this album sees a wider influence from those genres (if mostly rather subtle). In particular, late in the tracklist “Victoria” feels more like an open country tune than anything else, and the group’s normal five-man lineup is joined by Justin Schipper playing pedal steel for a grand total of five of the record’s eleven tracks.
The biggest selling point of
Daniel, particularly when compared to much of Real Estate’s (fairly limp) recent material, is that a bunch of these songs are quite distinctive on an individual basis. Tracks like opener “Somebody New” or the very catchy highlight “Water Underground” feature shiny hooks which fit nicely into the band’s familiar jangly presentation, while other tracks manage to stand out by subverting the band’s traditional formulas. The record’s centerpiece, “Freeze Brain”, for example, is enlivened by its underlying rhythms, while the final one-two punch of the crunchy guitar of “Market Street” and the pensive closer “You Are Here” also stand out. “You Are Here” is particularly notable, feeling wholly unique within Real Estate’s discography - an airy and contemplative piece which sprawls out, feeling longer than in its five minute runtime (in a good way). It might not represent the kind of music this band does best, but it’s intriguing and well-executed nonetheless, serving as icing on the cake for an album which demonstrates that Real Estate are willing and able to shift things up to keep things fresh.
While there’s plenty of praise to be doled out, it’s worth noting that
Daniel does benefit from the low bar of minimal expectation after several disappointing releases. When compared with the consistent delights of
Days or
Atlas, this is an album which will inevitably be found wanting. While every song here is at least “pretty good”, a sizable chunk of the tracklist here falls into that zone, worthy of a compliment, but only a rather ambivalent one. “Haunted World”, for example, delivers a suitable sense of gentle melancholia, but as an earworm, everything feels a tad forced. Meanwhile, on the album’s back half, the fuzzy “Airdrop” leans a bit too hard on the anticipated profoundness of the repeated line “
the sun went down, we let it”, and falls flat alongside it. Therefore, this album might be best characterized as a mixed bag, if a breezy and eminently likable one. In the end, that’s more than enough, as
Daniel delivers the twofold triumphs of, first, delivering satisfactorily upon the band’s original talent for hooks and vibe, and second, demonstrating enough variety to suggest that Real Estate doesn’t intend to forever languish in their comfort zone to diminishing returns. I’ll take it.
