[Peach]

Context is a funny thing: it can totally change our tastes and expectations, if only temporarily. For example, Peach opened last July with a pleasant 12″ from Cromie & Sage Caswell. Kyle Hall delivered a great remix on the flip. Enter record number two, Earth House Hold’s See Through You. People seem to like it plenty, despite the fact that it’s more or less a bland incarnation of progressive house. Maybe it’s just a good record. Or maybe — and this is more plausible — people liked the first 12″ so much, they wanted to like this one too, before they’d even heard it. We’re all guilty of that to some extent, right?

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The tracks aren’t bad, really — just plain. Earth House Hold, aka Brock Van Wey, averages about four ambient albums a year as Bvdub, and in both tracks’ melodic sections, that influence is evident. “Back Where I Belong,” for instance, revels in breezy Balearic vibes, letting them wash over a big room beat for 12 minutes. Austin Cesear did something similar with “1 Year,” but where his sunny overtones escalated nicely, Van Wey’s barely get out of the blocks. It’s a shame, because they’re quite pretty. The rhythm section follows the same pattern, varying little and keeping time more so than creating interesting swing. Matthew Dekay and Lee Burridge’s “Lost in a Moment” did something similar, and both suffer for it. Finally, limp vocals deliver lines like, “Last time, you said that you’d always be there, so tell me, tell me, how you expect me to care?” “Little Late For That Now” shoots for a quieter dance-floor moment, but despite its pastel-chord charms, the beats again feel leaden and the vocal performance uninspiring. Peach may yet have great things ahead of it, but this record, which feels eternally poised for take-off, isn’t it.