So this is dream pop. What is dream pop, you ask? Think ethereal textures rather than hooks, breathy high-register vocals that sound more sexless than sexual, and hazy minimalistic tones as opposed to brawny melodies. That’s dream pop and Beach House fits the bill.

Of course, genre geeks might consider Beach House to be more akin to shoegaze, but shoegaze implies a sense of aggression that washes over the dreamy waves of pop. Where My Bloody Valentine is shoegaze, Low is dream pop. Or maybe it’s one and the same and I’m just pointlessly pissing in the wind. Probably the latter.

Beach House’s second album, Devotion, is light, spacious, and delicate. Often compared to Mazzy Star, Baltimore’s Beach House is comprised of Alex Scally on guitars and keyboards and Victoria Legrand on vocals and organ. The minimalistic setup of the band is not to be trusted, as the tapestry of sound evident on Devotion seems more fitted to a complete band.

Devotion sounds more like a winding stream through a foggy forest than it does a beach house crammed with frat boys and girls gone gregarious. The songs meander and pour, never pulled in a direction by overzealous tinkling. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that most of the music on this album simply exists. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is for you to decide.

Devotion does begin with a sense of direction and a homey sort of feel, though, as the gentle sway of “Wedding Bell” takes us on a bit of a journey. Featuring a faint harpsichord, the song is a snaking greeting of sorts. Once the gleefulness comes to a halt, things become more ambiguous and disengaging. Legrand’s spooky voice on “You Came to Me” is our guide through some sort of haunted house of the damned.

One figures Legrand could sing the most inspirational and obnoxious pop and still find a way to wind things down to a crawl, such is her gift. With Devotion, it fits. Somewhere else, it wouldn’t. The piano and percussion mash-up found on “Holy Dances” evidences this further, as Legrand meanders through the tune with Scally’s plunking in the background.

One of my favourite tunes is “Heart of Chambers,” a gently-packaged tune that is a wistful ghost story surviving on the bones of its skeletal simplicity. Most of Devotion is like that. The organ, percussion, light guitar, and vocals all stream together in a vaporous fashion as though intent on guiding the listener to some sort of netherworld when they’re not paying attention.

When Legrand’s discontented vocals get a bit snide, like on “Gila” where she intones “Man, you’ve got a lot of jokes to tell,” we’re still listening as absorbedly as ever. Devotion is like a spell and dream pop seems more fitting than ever once the closing strains of “Home Again” drift out of range. Again, Beach House has lulled us into a false sense of security and again they’ve pulled the rug out from under us.

Devotion is a wonderful album, to put it rather plainly. Its meandering pace can be disconcerting for listeners who expect their music to go somewhere. But Beach House is more interested in taking us somewhere than going anywhere themselves. Like spirits leading us somewhere into the night, they’ve come calling.