Send "Real Estate " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 For a mix of songs made at different times, Real Estate's self-titled 2009 debut was impressively consistent. Given how well the New Jersey band fused disparate moments, you had to figure they could reach even greater heights were they to craft their next set all at once. They did just over the last winter, and the result is indeed a step forward. Cleaner, sharper, and just plain stronger, Days is like a single idea divided into simple statements-- a suite of subtle variations on a theme.Its coherence sounds remarkably effortless, as if stringing together catchy gems is as easy as, in the words of one song, "floating on an inner tube in the sun." Interestingly, Real Estate actually acknowledge this sense of ease. The opener is bluntly titled "Easy", and references to carefree simplicity abound. As singer/guitarist Martin Courtney puts it, "If it takes all summer long/ Just to write one simple song/ There's too much to focus on/ Clearly there is something wrong." But the band's celebration of the uncomplicated is less about how Days was written than about the beauty of life seen in retrospect, especially young life in small towns. Like the stirring scenes of suburban Texas in Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, these songs find meaning in daily mundanities-- in houses and gardens, phone lines and street lights, names carved in trees and leaves pressed by footsteps. "All those wasted miles/ All those aimless drives through green aisles," sings Courtney wistfully. "Our careless lifestyle, it was not so unwise." That sentiment was evident on the band's debut, but here they've honed it to its essence. The music bears a simplicity to match. These aren't minimal songs by any means, but the layers of cycling guitar, rolling rhythm, and gentle echo are always understated, more about conveying feeling than showing off the band's considerable chops. There's also a smooth efficiency in these rich tunes. No note feels wasted, and nothing happens at the wrong time or in the wrong place. Much of this precision comes from guitarist Matt Mondanile, whose nimble playing adds color to each song's shape. It's most noticeable in the insistent "It's Real", but I'm even more taken with his sonic smoke rings in "Out of Tune", and how his shimmering guitar evokes sunrays mingling through branches and sparkling off pools....full text |
| Guardian |
| What with all the hoopla around the Drums a couple of years ago, New Jersey's Real Estate have rather played the wallflowers at the 80s revival party. Not that they mind overmuch, judging by the sweet-natured dreaminess of their output. RE's self-titled 2009 debut introduced the band's hazy, Byrds-derived jangle; this second effort reimagines the bucolic pastorales of the 80s indie movement, given a Fleet Foxes skill set. "Kinder Blumen" is an instrumental whose circular prettiness is anything but knock-kneed, while "Green Aisles" makes a very persuasive case for driving aimlessly around woodland....full text |
| Bbc |
| About a year and a half ago I caught the last half-hour or Real Estate’s set at Barcelona’s renowned Primavera Sound festival, and without wanting to exaggerate too much, they were pretty much perfect. One of the first bands on the bill on a beautiful, sunny afternoon after a fairly exhausting weekend, in performing much of their well-received debut album with delightful abandon they effortlessly won over the crowd that gradually amassed before they left the stage. That was the first time I heard the trio, but, strangely, I didn’t investigate them any further. I can’t say why exactly – perhaps I had the sense that those 30 minutes couldn’t be easily beaten; that they were ideally suited to that specific moment and would only disappoint on record. Maybe they were just another likeable though hardly exceptional indie-pop band, and why put myself through that disappointment? It wasn’t without a sense of curiosity, then, that I approached Days, their second album (and first for venerable indie label Domino). Recorded over five months in a remote barn-stroke-studio with Kevin McMahon (who has previously worked with Titus Andronicus and The Walkmen, both responsible for some of the meatiest, straight-up satisfying indie-rock albums of the last few years) it is a yearning, winsome thing, drenched in autumnal colour and a sweet, almost blissful nostalgia; a sonic leap forward from their homespun self-titled debut. It is the kind of record that might drift by unassumingly lest you lend it a careful ear, but really: the second you do, it rewards unequivocally. Fronted by Martin Courtney, the band members are childhood friends from the suburban town of Ridgewood, New Jersey, who reunited following their respective graduations elsewhere. Their shared vision as a unit is immediately apparent throughout the 10 songs that make up Days, where clean, layered guitar tones are propped up by ebullient bass-lines and rounded off by Courtney’s (or Alex Bleeker’s, in the case of Wonder Years) easygoing vocals. Occasionally a lyric or an image jumps out at you – a frozen sea, the frequency of an internal debate, mountains of maple leaves – but these are details to discover at leisure. Days somehow manages to reflect on growing up with startling clarity while exhibiting youthful innocence and exuberance in spades (not to mention a bounty of warm, hook-filled melodies). In fact, for what it is it is so perfect that I’m not sure I’ll even chance a listen at their third....full text |
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