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 certainly doesn't have much to do with the high art that's marked
Wilson's new millennium; there's nary an echo of the
SMiLE revival or the
Van Dyke Parks collaboration
That Lucky Old Sun. This 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. It's a nice anchor for the record and, frankly,
No Pier Pressure needs such a grounding force because it often threatens to drift far away on the surging tides of showbiz schmaltz. When
She & Him breeze in to deliver some Caribbean camp on "On the Island," the results are agreeably camp but "Runaway Dancer," a collaboration with
Sebu Simonian of
Capital Cities that seems determined to revive the arch camp peak of
Stock, Aitken & Waterman, feels like a half-imagined Ibizaian hangover. By any measure, "Runaway Dancer" is bizarre but by arriving second on
No Pier Pressure, it throws the whole feel of the album out of whack, turning such otherwise nice moments as
Kacey Musgraves' "Guess You Had to Be There" cloying. 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 genuinely weird, as it's perilously perched between the best and worst of
Wilson's pop talent and Thomas' showbiz instincts. [A Deluxe Edition added three bonus tracks.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine