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Bowden On Best Coast


Lydia Bowden, Eyewear's current music critic, checks out the second Best Coast album

Summer: beer in hand and a small group of friends with Best Coast’s brand new album The Only Place playing in the background- it’s where it belongs.

Having been influenced by The Beach Boys, duo Bobb Bruno and Bethany Cosentino had something to build upon, and you sure can hear this in their second album. However this better produced set of songs wasn’t what the band had originally been going for. Their debut ‘Crazy for You’ has a much –how can I put this? - Dirtier, feel to it, with less of that sharp, nipped and tucked sound you hear in ‘The Only Place’.

This was all with the help of producer Jon Brion, who has worked with some big names like Keane and Kanye West- to name a few. With his help, Best Coast were sure to create such a great album.

With their clever play on words in the title, its obvious the duo love all things West Coast- I’ll let you work that one out- and you can hear it in the music, especially the title song which starts out with a light, but head-bobbing guitar strum, and as I found, it’s quite hard to stop throughout the song. “We were born with sun in our teeth and in our hair” the opening line totally sums up their life in California, and it’s almost them introducing themselves to the listener in their own little way.

Lydia Bowden, Eyewear staffer
Other songs like ‘Mean Girls’ and ‘Let’s Go Home’ also have a slight Californian- chilled kick to them, but taking a look at all the others, it seems life perhaps is not all that dandy in the West Coast. ‘Why I Cry’ and ‘How They Want Me to Be’ make me sad; to put it bluntly and they’ll make you sad if you listen to them enough, just read the titles.

Saying that, you still need this album on your summer play list. And hey, even if there are a few sad songs, you’ve still got your beer and your friends, so what possibly could go wrong?

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