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May 4, 2015On California Nights, they made a risky choice and it pays off in a big way. They come off assured and confident, fully in control of the songs and the sound in a way they never have before.
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May 4, 2015Best Coast might not have totally shaken the frivolity on California Nights, but it’s hard to care when it sounds this good.
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May 12, 2015The album likely won't convince anyone who's already written off Best Coast, but it's a new high for a band many thought had peaked years ago.
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May 5, 2015Far from a departure, it's more the continuation of a recurring theme--but one that isn't half bad at all.
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Apr 29, 2015California Nights peels] away the layers of haze to reveal a mature ambivalence that feels more sincere--and less forced--than anything Cosentino’s done since Crazy for You.... Production flourishes might not appeal to those who fell in love with Best Coast for its bedroom sensibilities, and there’s probably a significant subset of fans who will resent California Nights as the moment the band abandoned indie for good.
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May 1, 2015Granted, they may not be reinventing the wheel, but the duo feel reinvigorated.
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May 1, 2015Away from the lyrics, there’s a nagging feeling that, like The Only Place, California Nights isn’t going to blow too many people away with its mostly familiar-feeling content.
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May 4, 2015The focused California Nights nevertheless cements Best Coast as one of the few bands capable of straddling the line between intimacy and mass appeal.
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May 5, 2015The duo of Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno move further toward mastering the [beach music] vibe on their third studio album, California Nights. They do so not by celebrating carefree romps along Pacific Coast Highway, though, but by inverting the Beach Boys' fun-fun-fun narrative.
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MojoMay 20, 2015California Nights comes over like a dreamier take on Hole's Celebrity Skin or a souped-up. digitally-produced Go-Go's. [Jun 2015, p.86]
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Apr 29, 2015It’s not a perfect ride.... Cosentino’s honeyed vocal is the only true constant. It’s a radiating sunbeam.
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May 8, 2015While California Nights doesn’t offer a more sophisticated version of Best Coast so much as a blander one, the heightened ambition of the songwriting and production could be an important step forward for the band.
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May 14, 2015Despite exceptionally strong hooks and her fine, assured singing, it's hard not to feel frustrated by Consentino's lack of depth and constant use of the most obvious rhymes.
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May 5, 2015In the end, California Nights has a powerful sound, and some of the catchiest songs Cosentino has ever written. It also lacks the celebration of amateurism that made Best Coast so relatable in the first place.
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May 6, 2015California Nights is a professional album: heavy-ish, filled with hooks, somewhere between "fast enough to dance" and "slow enough to sigh to while looking out of a window."
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May 5, 2015Best Coast still have delivered an overall solid album with California Nights, but it remains hard to see how the simplification of their craft and the softening of their image will allow Consentino to attract new listeners without losing the older ones.
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May 5, 2015It’s an enjoyable and diversionary, if not particularly nutritious, experience.
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Q MagazineApr 29, 2015The polished alt-rock on show here may be serviceable and vaguely reminiscent of Hole circa Live Through This, but it also lacks any of the band's own DNA. [Jun 2015, p.100]
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May 5, 2015It mostly works. "Fine Without You" and "In My Eyes" layer Cosentino's voice into a mighty punk-pop army that sounds a little like the cheerleaders from the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video formed a glee club.
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May 4, 2015With songs and production this pumped, they’ll continue to make waves far outside their beloved home state.
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May 13, 2015Aside from two or three fillers, this record should be applauded for doing what Consentino does best: writing melodies that stick in your head for days.
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May 5, 2015Thematically, California Nights is perhaps a bit too troubled for a barbecue, but for driving around on a hot summer’s night with the windows rolled down and the stereo turned all the way up, it’s just right.
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Apr 29, 2015In among the keening college stuff is the languid desert rock of the title track, which gently spirals into a stoned dream as the hot Californian sky burns out the boredom of suburban reality.
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Apr 29, 2015Like its predecessor, it’s a little too long, but California Nights reaffirms the things that Crazy for You had me believing and The Only Place had me doubting; that Cosentino is a fine songwriter with a keen ear for melody, that Bruno’s guitar work is the perfect foil for her.
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May 4, 2015Their third album is another impressive set.
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UncutApr 29, 2015[Producer] Wally Gagel, who helmed the 2013 EP "Fade Away" and now California Nights, gets it right, cranking up the reverb and multiplying Cosentino's vocals to achieve the Spector-esque wall of sound the duo has been aiming for. [Jun 2015, p.71]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 22 out of 33
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Mixed: 9 out of 33
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Negative: 2 out of 33
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Jul 2, 2018
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Jun 14, 2015
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May 6, 2015