No Pier Pressure

That's Why God Made the Radio provided a bittersweet coda to the Beach Boys' career but the soothing sounds of the 2012 reunion didn't linger long before they were soured by the internal fighting endemic to the band. Mere weeks afterward, Mike Love announced Brian Wilson wouldn't join the Beach Boys for any dates after the summer 2012 tour, leaving Brian free to capitalize on the good press of That's Why God Made the Radio. He headed into the studio with guitarist Jeff Beck and producer Don Was in 2013 with the intention of cutting a full album but that collaboration quickly fell apart, leaving Wilson to re-team with his longtime collaborator Joe Thomas to turn these abandoned sessions into what turned out to be No Pier Pressure. Caught halfway between a back-to-basics move along the lines of TWGMTR and a star-studded extravaganza, No Pier Pressure is all sand, sun, and Saturday night nostalgia, a sensibility goosed by the addition of Al Jardine, David Marks, and Blondie Chaplin -- the part of the Beach Boys camp that threw in their lot with Brian -- who help give their numbers ("What Ever Happened," "The Right Time," "Sail Away") a bit of the classicist AM pop sheen that made That's Why God Made the Radio so soothing. Elsewhere, the album relies on guest stars to give it a bit of showbiz sheen. She & Him breeze in to deliver some Caribbean camp on "On the Island," Sebu Simonian of Capital Cities gives Brian a dance club makeover on "Runaway Dancer," and Kacey Musgraves graces "Guess You Had to Be There." By the time Nate Ruess of Fun. shows up for "Saturday Night," a throwback that seems to belong the early-'80s soft rock glory days of Carole Bayer Sager and not American Graffiti (and is the better for it), No Pier Pressure seems a fusion of Wilson's classic sunshine instincts and modern Hollywood pop. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine