For better or worse, anything Brian Wilson or the Beach Boys release is 
going to be compared to their halcyon days of 66-72. Paul McCartney and The 
Stones have the same problems with their later work vs. their heyday releases. 
I choose not to compare sometimes. When listening to the new Beach Boys 
album I let the Mike Love anger and the Brian Wilson regrets fade away. It's not 
a bad record by any stretch and some parts are quite, quite good. They will 
never reach Smile territory again and I don't expect them to. From what I 
am hearing on the album, it's better than anyone could have ever thought they 
would come up with at this point. It certainly beats my expectations of 
what I thought it was going to be. I am happy to hear the harmonies again. If 
this is Brian's goodbye to the band, they went out on a high, well-harmonized 
note as far as I am concerned.

Scott Homewood

PS - listening to Mas Rapido albums on Parasol - are they still together? 
The two albums I stumbled upon are fantastic!

 





In a message dated 6/10/2012 6:34:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
garymaher@juno.com writes: 
> I think the new Beach Boys release is a mediocre Beach Boys record, but 
> if somebody played it for me without telling me it was the Beach Boys (and 
> if I somehow didn't recognize the gorgeous harmonies), I would consider it a 
> really good Beach Boys-influenced pop record. That being said, I agree 
> that I would much rather have a new Wondermints album at this point than a new 
> Beach Boys record...