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Apr 6, 2015If it doesn’t all quite hit past heights, the gorgeous, elegiac album closer The Last Song is a reminder that Wilson set the bar particularly high.
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Apr 3, 2015There’s a fundamental corniness running through Pressure, from its glossy soft-rock sheen to its borderline-anodyne lyrics about seaside love. But Wilson sells it pretty well, aided by his legendary knack for effervescent melodies and the presence of dynamic young guests.
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Apr 8, 2015The only songs that completely jell vocally are the ones featuring former Beach Boys.
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Apr 7, 2015Between hints of the past’s greatness and some head-scratching choices otherwise, Wilson’s No Pier Pressure lives in a pleasant, inoffensive middle--and that’s a quality seen nowhere across his most daring, adored works.
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Apr 24, 2015No Pier Pressure is another patchy collection that includes some of his best recent work alongside his most risible.
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MojoApr 21, 2015Tellingly, Al Jardine and David Marks return here, their harmonies shining in the gorgeously dreamy Whatever Happened. [May 2015, p.93]
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MagnetApr 15, 2015It's hard to imagine reaching for No Pier Pressure when you could choose from all those great(and even not-so-great) Beach Boys albums from 40 or 50 years ago. [No. 119, p.60]
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Apr 7, 2015Existing Wilson fans will find this an enjoyable enough diversion, but even they will have to admit, it’s a little flimsy and simply not up to the high water mark Wilson has set for himself.
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Apr 7, 2015There are missed opportunities--the She & Him track is slight, and a rumored Frank Ocean team-up is sadly absent--and a few too many retreads (the "Sloop John B"-ish "Sail Away"), although the harmonies do sound grand with Al Jardine and other Beach Boys teammates on board.
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Apr 6, 2015On No Pier Pressure, they [Wilson and co-producer Joe Thomas] juggle past and present in strangely proportioned ways.
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Apr 6, 2015Unfortunately, the songs end up seeming more lightweight than they otherwise might.
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Apr 6, 2015On the gorgeous Jardine/Wilson weeper “Tell Me Why”, the doleful nostalgia is surprisingly clear-eyed.... Sadly, “that thing” goes missing on Kacey Musgraves’ kite-weight offering and electro throwaway “Runaway Dancer”, fronted by Capital Cities’ Sebu Simonian, with synths via McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”.
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Apr 6, 2015Unsurprisingly, No Pier Pressure works best when, as on What Ever Happened and Tell Me Why, the Beach Boy fastens winsome 60s harmonies to damp-eyed reflections on the passing of time.
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Apr 2, 2015No Pier Pressure seems genuinely weird, as it's perilously perched between the best and worst of Wilson's pop talent and Thomas' showbiz instincts.
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Apr 2, 2015No Pier Pressure doesn’t bother trying to sound current, instead aiming to attract casual listeners with special guests, not all of whom complement Wilson.
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UncutApr 2, 2015Wilson's chord changes are as heart-wrenching as ever, and bathed in heavenly harmonies. [May 2015, p.84]
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Apr 9, 2015Wilson’s chipper duets never reach equilibrium. Either his presence feels underutilized--the syrupy "On the Island" with She & Him, in which his vocals are scant--or the guests feel shoehorned into musty production that undermines their own charisma.
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Apr 7, 2015No Pier Pressure sounds simultaneously over- and underproduced: loaded with layers upon layers of instruments, but unable to shake the flat, bright sheen of something recorded in a basement studio.
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Apr 16, 2015No Pier Pressure shows just what too many cooks can do to a Beach Boy's broth.
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Apr 16, 2015The most frustrating part is that many of the songs are decent, but they're consistently compromised by the ham-fisted presentation.
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Apr 7, 2015No Pier Pressure throws out that decade and a half worth of good will by doing the exact opposite, stacking the record with guest stars like Nate Ruess and Kacey Musgraves and "updating" Wilson's compositions with heaps of undercooked stylistic diversions.
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Apr 16, 2015Minus a few semi-refreshing exceptions that see Brian Wilson team up with old bandmate Jardine--is more or less artistically bankrupt, failing as it largely does to communicate or emotionalize anything of Wilson’s concrete being or of the 21st century in which he now finds himself.
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Apr 7, 2015The aforementioned [producer Joe] Thomas does know who those people [guest singers] are, and he brings them on here basically to bring some media attention to a collection of limp, lifeless songs.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 10
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Mixed: 3 out of 10
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Negative: 0 out of 10
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May 18, 2016
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Apr 11, 2015
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Apr 7, 2015