Best Coast/ Crazy For You

Best Coast
Crazy For You
(Wichita)

In theory, the legacy of ‘50s girl groups being blended with the moroseness of grunge should result in some kind of horrific, face-wrecking car crash. But somehow, somewhere in the lusty melancholy of (Best Coast singer) Beth Consentino’s voice, the genres the US has bestowed on the world make for a hybrid of considerable attraction.
The simplicity of the lyrics on tracks like ‘Goodbye’ hark right back to the Shangri-Las, yet with a clatter of unhinged cymbals and heavy guitars they’re brought right up to date.
The whole album feels lost in a haze of the summer, and this spiraling of louche emotions is best captured on ‘Summer Mood’ (the most Ronnettes-toting track), in which the singer is very much located in her home town in California, where the drugs and the sun are simply tiresome without the playmate she longs for.
Producer Bobb Bruno has done a mesmerising job of making all twelve tracks sound like they were recorded in mono, giving the impression that Consentino is jamming out these heart-baked tracks from within a tin can.
That’s not to say there isn’t variation – the switch up to self-harmonising on ‘Our Deal’ and the Howling Bells-esque doom in the drums on ‘Honey’ all make perimeter markings for this album.
There are stacks of heartbreak records lining the halls of pop history, but Best Coast hold the enviable position of having created something at once retro and yet new. I guess it’s not always what you say, more the way you say it.