While Two Door Cinema Club’s first album may have been titled Tourist History, listen to the acclaimed debut album and it doesn’t appear that the rising electro-alternative trio traveled far beyond their hometown grammar school when composing chart-invading hits like “Something Good Can Work” and “Undercover Martyn.” Tourist History was lithe, funky and any other bubbly adjectives you can conjure up, with lyrics and chords reminiscent of kiddie love at a house party. Worldly, it was not. In Beacon, the group’s second full-length album, the pride of Northern Ireland has both literally and musically left their hometown of Bangor, where they met as teenagers. Beacon’s instrumentals are more mature and more processed (mostly in a good way) than the ultra-snappy basslines of its popular predecessor, while its lyrics mirror the experience the band has gained from touring around the world. Add that the album was recorded in Los Angeles and we have lyrics that evoke distance and drip with homesickness for a love in a faraway land. But while some songs look at the melancholies of a transatlantic gap, the guitar and bass lines of Beacon are still mostly upbeat, coated with California sunshine.
Original Author: Brian Gordon