Start your 2010 engines: Beach House's "Teen Dream" leaks, is awesome

As we just got through saying, we are firmly in year-end list season. And since it's 2009, we're also in decade-end list season (vote here! You're telling me you don't have an opinion on the Knife vs. LCD Soundsystem? Or In Rainbows vs. Veckatimest?). And all that's fine. It's kind of fun, even, sometimes. But why spend all your time in the past when 2010 is roughly six weeks away?

Enter Baltimore dream-pop duo Beach House, whose forthcoming Teen Dream debuted on ye olde internette this week.  And I must say: it's really good. Not that I didn't have reason to expect greatness or anything. Their previous record, Devotion, is pretty solid. I'd heard some new stuff at their recent Boston appearance, which sounded pretty good. And Ed Droste was raving about it on his since-deleted Twitter. But still: Teen Dream - good luck with that particular Google search, by the way - is a big step forward for Beach House. They've expanded and improved their sound without fundamentally changing anything. Listen to "Norway" below:

LISTEN: Beach House, "Norway" (mp3)