Brian Wilson: That Lucky Old Sun

"I had this dream, singing

with my brothers / In harmony, supporting each other," Brian Wilson sings on "Southern

California," the closing track of That Lucky Old Sun. The distance between

that dream and how it worked out haunts the album, but listeners will have to

dig beneath the surface to find it. Much in the mold of Smile, Wilson's 2004 completion

of an abandoned Beach Boys album, That Lucky Old Sun arrives drenched in the

harmonies and instrumental inventiveness that have been Wilson's trademarks for

decades. Working with Smile collaborator Van Dyke Parks and bandmate Scott

Bennett, Wilson also strives to recapture Smile's thematic unity in the

service of paying tribute to Southern California's past, present, and future.

It's an ambitious piece of

musical landscape art done in a style Wilson both invented and defined. It's

also not an entirely successful effort—too often, it sounds like an

ersatz but almost relentlessly peppy Smile. For every lovely bit of dreaminess like "Midnight's

Another Day," there's a skippable chugger like "Goin' Home," and even more

skippable spoken-word tracks. Still, Wilson's music has long been as much about

the cracks as the beautiful surfaces, and his personality is apparent on every

heartfelt note of Lucky Old Sun. The album pays wistful, hopeful tribute to the

place he's long called home, and in spite of hard years and losses, now wants

to enjoy for a while.