6 keepers
keeper avg .462
The "Badlands" (Springsteen) fill is a good place to begin a 60's-retro girl-group album, and "Boyfriend"**** pays off with a beguiling combination of heavy reverb, haunting harmonies, and longing. "The End"**** adds a sunny jangle, while "Our Deal"**** has that bittersweet Beach Boys Pet Sounds melancholy. On the other hand, this is the song that got me thinking of who else this band reminds me of - Scotland's Camera Obscura. Not that every Camera Obscura album is as consistent as this one, but surely they blazed the trail that this band is traveling down. Best Coast follows this path so consistently that most of these 13 songs of identical instrumentation and production are difficult to tell apart. Another quibble I have is the careless phrasing that sounds ad libbed or just unrefined, such as the end of "Goodbye", all of "Happy", and "Bratty B" which is just one chorus-less stream of consciousness rant. Fortunately the pleasing angularity of "When The Sun Don't Shine"****, the smoldering stickiness of "Honey"****, and the exuberance of "Goodbye"**** elevate the album from true monotony. They may not be as deep or refined as Camera Obscura but between all the "Ooh's" and "la la la la's" and Bethany Cosentino's extreme diction (I think she manages to work about 3 vowels into the word "fun" in "When I'm With You") the album really grew on me.
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