The story of the Beach Boys, from one angle, has been the curious parallel careers of the band themselves – led by Mike Love and making albums that veer from surf pop revisited to LPs of brilliance, like Holland – and of Brian Wilson, unable to tour for years but turning up from time to time.
Now, after decades of frostiness between the two, after the deaths of Dennis and Carl Wilson, and the rehabilitation of Brian, comes what may well be the last album that features Mike Love and Brian Wilson together.
And it’s good. Despite a lot of autotune, the songs float in melody and nostalgia like every great Beach Boys song since Surf’s Up or Do It Again.
Titles like From There To Back Again, Spring Vacation and the mad single That’s Why God Made The Radio (which rhymes “when I” with “antennae”), this is an old man’s record – but good God, what old men.
