The third LP, released on 9th February 2024, was a hugely anticipated release following 3 years of radio silence; created alongside Gianluca Buccellati (Lana Del Rey, Arlo Parks, Easy Life) to a warm Los Angeles backdrop, What Happened to the Beach? is a glistening reminder of a musician confident in his craft yet always on a quest for adventure, this time with a metal detector by his side and sand slipping through his fingers. The wonky, energetic, White Album-referencing tunes are familiar, the undertones of fizzy bedroom pop and occasional political references quintessential cogs in McKenna’s artistic machine— however this time, as per to the visceral growth in his youthful career, the archetype of his art has been married to a refreshing new avenue of sound, a dissociative synth-heavy daze.
Traditionally drawing ideas from the wider social landscape— the news portrayal of transgender youth in The Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home, the British Foreign Policy in British Bombs, the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil— McKenna turns away from the wider world and zooms inward, swapping fervent lyrics for intimately personal ideas through relaxed, slower vocals, initially touched on throughout the verses of Isombard yet refined, with sometimes nihilistic and satirical flavourings. The social commentary references are now washed with dry wit, noting ‘We used to breathe the air / now it’s, “Thanks, pass the gas tanks”’ in plucky opening track Wobble— a bent-out-of-shape, immediate transcend into McKenna’s new era— and the celestial breathless speed of Zeros is reminisced in auto-tuned Breath of Light (my personal favourite, an extraordinary song), paired with confused and trippy imagery through ‘I’m a cheesecake junkie in a constant grief / Would you catch me in the centre of your cosmic sin? / When I’m picking at the pimples on my plastic skin’. The self growth within McKenna’s artistry is shaped through breaking the mould of upbeat, explosive tunes and entering a more self assured, whimsical body of work, adopting Unknown Mortal Orchestera styles of rhythmic beats and building each song with gripping Revolver textures.
The self growth within McKenna’s artistry is shaped through breaking the mould of upbeat, explosive tunes and entering a more self assured, whimsical body of work
The tracks foster a vulnerable sense of an individual grappling with self identity and self acceptance, sometimes even self-deprecation notably in singles Sympathy and Nothing Works, and an inspection into loved ones, creating an interesting juxtaposition in a West Coast fever dream and reflecting the grappling process of being in your mid twenties (and being alive at that). The album concludes with a 48 second echoey, almost Cocteau Twins shoegaze studio voicemail of a strumming guitar and soothing harmonies, an awakening out of the trip and a liquidy flow from It’s An Act, where McKenna and his piano wrap up the fever dream and question authenticity, bringing the record to a slow following the festival kickers like The Phantom Buzz (Kick In).
The ribbons of keynotes weaving through the track list bundle the record together perfectly, a cyclical level of acoustic melodies, synth bassoons, and planetary bass heartbeats, tying everything up into a glorious gift of an MGMT kind of pop-psychedelia with a gift tag of 60s-inspired pop, mastering an ambition of new adventure all without straying away from his own branding and enhanced with Buccellati’s free flowing indie toolkit. Declan McKenna’s cohesive new album is a triumph of new beginnings, and proves one thing: the man knows what he’s doing.
Sources still yet to confirm what actually happened to the beach.
