Throughout the last decade Real Estate lived in a world of their own. This New Jersey quartet’s pristine melodies and delightful rhythms are truly unparalleled in the indie rock universe. Unsurprsingly, since their 2009 debut, they’ve maintained their status making them relatable and yet, at the same time, they can surprise you with each release.

The Main Thing is no different in that regard, but it actually sees Real Estate aiming for something beyond their usual sound and the results are quite interesting. At first listen, the album sounds livelier, with a mix that seems to focus on bringing every instrument to the same level. This works in favor of the songs, which this time notably cover more ground.

There’s new sounds to find all over. Real Estate incorporate strings, synths, a back-up vocal from Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meade and in many songs, Martin Courtney and Julian Lynch use different effects for their guitars, which is one of the main differences with the instrumental aesthetic of their past releases. Moreover, the album is actually the band’s longest, giving them space to increment their usual instrumental pieces to two and making several songs more expansive.

A good example of this is ‘Also a But’, a 5+ minute track written by Lynch, that works as the album centerpiece. Its instrumental passages and inventive drumming in the chorus add up to one of the best moments in the album. One in which Courtney sings about a general sense of anxiety: ‘Always feeling tense, I await calamity/At times I feel I can’t even trust the ground under my feet.’

This type of existential uncertainty is a recurring theme throughout the album. In the title track Courtney actually tries to help anyone with this type of feeling: ‘Despite the true significance of everything at stake’, he sings over the song’s shimmery guitars, ‘I will stay true…it’s all I can do’, he concludes in the chorus. Stating that there’s ways to find the way despite the crushing doubt.

One of the mainstays of the band, that remains untouched on The Main Thing is Martin Courtney’s voice. Always sounding unattached and gentle, his delivery is somewhat pushed by the album’s mix, and you can still feel that he’s whispering to your ear while looking away towards the horizon. This helps the album feel unmistakeably Real Estate’s, a commendation to their consistency.

2017’s In Mind felt transitional, specially in the wake of guitarist Matt Mondanile’s departure after allegations of sexual misconduct against him. The Main Thing, a solid and steady step in a new direction, shows Real Estate coming into their own with the subsequent natural growth after a line up change. In ‘Procession’, a song about starting to feel unattached to where you come from, Courtney gently croons in the chorus: ‘But I’ve always been impatient/it sweetens to look back’ something this album conveys: a band pushing forward, drifting away from their past, but still unavoidably looking back to what make them charming in the first place.