“In L.A., or maybe just personally to me, when the sun sets — I feel like there is a large sense of calmness in the air, I feel like everything that happened to me prior in the day, whether crappy experiences or good ones, at night, it all goes away and I sink deep into this different kind of ‘world.'” That’s Bethany Cosentino’s statement about the new Best Coast song, a really great one, off their major label debut of the same name, California Nights.
I’ve had a soft spot for Bethany and Bobb Bruno, aka best Coast, ever since watching em play in an apocalyptic flood at Governors Ball in 2013, her “This fucking sucks” comment absolutely defined the event.
Actually, I liked her before then, I wasn’t crazy about the debut album Crazy For You, but I did love The Only Place, another album with a great title song, what I admire so much about the bnd is the way they are bright blue manic depressives: you can just imagine what a Brian-Beth slumber party would be like, up all night smoking pot and crying.
Speaking of smoking pot, it really isn’t cool enough to write about constantly, here she is stoned (with another major pothead nathan williams) and I guess it is the drugs but on this majorly enoyable psychedelic freak out, when bethany sings “I’m so happy I could die” you might be excused for wondering why she doesn’t sound so happy.
The song sounds as though Best Coast have made the move from the Beach Boys to the Dream Syndicate while remaining true to themselves. It is a real goodie with a sterling guitar break and a haunting, sadly sad (does anybody do sad quite as well nowadays?) vocal. Apparently, Beth suffers from insomnia, but this is too intricate to be any for of lullaby. A very strong first song from the May 5th release on Harvest.
Grade: B+