"I had this dream, singing
with my brothers / In harmony, supporting each other," Brian Wilson sings on "Southern
California," the closing track of That Lucky Old Sun. The distance between
that dream and how it worked out haunts the album, but listeners will have to
dig beneath the surface to find it. Much in the mold of Smile, Wilson's 2004 completion
of an abandoned Beach Boys album, That Lucky Old Sun arrives drenched in the
harmonies and instrumental inventiveness that have been Wilson's trademarks for
decades. Working with Smile collaborator Van Dyke Parks and bandmate Scott
Bennett, Wilson also strives to recapture Smile's thematic unity in the
service of paying tribute to Southern California's past, present, and future.
It's an ambitious piece of
musical landscape art done in a style Wilson both invented and defined. It's
also not an entirely successful effort—too often, it sounds like an
ersatz but almost relentlessly peppy Smile. For every lovely bit of dreaminess like "Midnight's
Another Day," there's a skippable chugger like "Goin' Home," and even more
skippable spoken-word tracks. Still, Wilson's music has long been as much about
the cracks as the beautiful surfaces, and his personality is apparent on every
heartfelt note of Lucky Old Sun. The album pays wistful, hopeful tribute to the
place he's long called home, and in spite of hard years and losses, now wants
to enjoy for a while.