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**Real Estate - In Mind ★★★★☆**

There's something deliciously perverse about a band called Real Estate making music that sounds like the antithesis of everything associated with property speculation and urban sprawl. While their moniker might conjure images of strip malls and suburban dystopia, Martin Courtney and his cohorts have spent the better part of a decade crafting soundscapes that feel more like lazy afternoons in overgrown gardens than anything you'd find in a developer's fever dream.

*In Mind*, the New Jersey quartet's fourth full-length, arrives at a curious juncture in the band's evolution. Following the departure of founding guitarist Matt Mondanile in 2016 – amid circumstances that cast long shadows over the indie rock community – Real Estate found themselves at something of a crossroads. Rather than retreat into familiar territory, they've emerged with their most cohesive and emotionally resonant statement yet, proving that sometimes creative upheaval can yield unexpected dividends.

The album opens with "Darling," a shimmering piece of guitar-pop perfection that immediately establishes the refined palette they're working with here. Courtney's vocals float over intricately woven guitar lines with the effortless grace of someone who's finally figured out exactly what they want to say and how to say it. It's indie rock comfort food, but executed with the kind of precision that elevates the familiar into something genuinely affecting.

What's immediately striking about *In Mind* is how the band has managed to expand their sonic vocabulary without abandoning the core elements that made them compelling in the first place. The jangly guitars are still there, of course – this is Real Estate, after all – but they're now augmented by subtle synthesizer textures and a rhythmic sophistication that suggests countless hours spent absorbing everything from Steely Dan to early R.E.M. The production, handled by Tom Schick, strikes that perfect balance between clarity and warmth, allowing each element to breathe while maintaining the dreamy cohesion that's become their calling card.

"Stained Glass" emerges as perhaps the album's most immediate triumph, built around a guitar riff that's simultaneously melancholic and uplifting. It's the kind of song that seems purpose-built for late-night drives through empty suburbs, all streetlights and possibility. Courtney's lyrics, meanwhile, have gained a new level of introspection, trading the sometimes aimless romanticism of earlier efforts for more pointed observations about relationships, responsibility, and the passage of time.

The album's emotional centerpiece arrives with "Two Arrows," a gorgeous meditation on connection and distance that finds the band at their most vulnerable. The interplay between guitars creates a sense of conversation, questions and answers floating back and forth over Alex Bleeker's supple basslines. It's here that you really feel the absence of Mondanile's more abstract contributions, but also where you appreciate how the remaining members have stepped up to fill that space with something distinctly their own.

Elsewhere, "Saturday" channels the band's gift for making the mundane feel magical, while "After the Moon" closes the album with a sense of hard-won wisdom that feels genuinely earned rather than simply affecting. Throughout, drummer Jackson Pollis provides the kind of steady, unshowy foundation that allows his bandmates to explore without ever losing the plot.

Real Estate have always trafficked in a particular brand of wistful Americana, the kind that finds profundity in parking lots and strip malls, but *In Mind* feels like their most complete realization of that vision. It's an album about growing up without growing cynical, about finding beauty in the everyday without ignoring its complications. In an era when indie rock often seems caught between ironic detachment and overwrought emotion, they've carved out a middle path that feels both timeless and utterly contemporary.

The album's legacy, five years on, has proven to be one of quiet influence rather than flashy innovation. It didn't reinvent the wheel, but it didn't need to – sometimes the most radical thing you can do is simply execute a familiar formula with uncommon grace and intelligence. *In Mind* stands as proof that Real Estate have evolved from promising upstarts into something rarer: a band that knows exactly who they are and isn't afraid to be it.