| Rating |
Summary |
|
| 4 by Rolling Stone |
"At 25, I turned out the light/'Cause I couldn't handle the glare in my tired eyes." Those lines in "Goin' Home" bluntly refer to Brian Wilson's famous mental shutdown ... |
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| n/a by www.slantmagazine.com |
In many ways, Wilson updates his style, while still paying tribute to the things he loves. |
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| n/a by Popmatters |
That Lucky Old Sun, then, is easily Wilsons best collection of new material since, well, the original SMiLE sessions. |
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| n/a by Billboard |
After taking care of some unfinished business in recent years, Brian Wilson shows he still has the stuff of conceptual brilliance on his eighth solo album. |
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| n/a by www.boston.com |
What makes the record work, though, is Wilson's ability to create melodies that blend the childlike and enthusiastic with the melancholic and nostalgic. |
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| n/a by www.ew.com |
The sunniness can feel strained, and 'Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl' is as unnecessary as sequels get. But when Wilson is on his game, you feel lucky to still be soaking up his rays. |
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| n/a by www.avclub.com |
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. |
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| n/a by uk.launch.yahoo.com |
Not only an opportunity to look back, then, but a joyous reminder that, when at his lowest, Brian Wilson stepped up and did the unthinkable. |
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| n/a by www.guardian.co.uk |
The concept of LA as a 'Sunblessed City of Angels' is trite, co-opting another's song for the theme tune lazy, and much of what follows resembles a Beach Boys tribute band. |
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| n/a by www.blender.com |
Sadly it's undercut by music that tirns Brian Wilson into merely another Brian Wilson imitator. [Sep 2008, p.85] |
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| n/a by thephoenix.com |
Brian Wilson and his karaoke-smooth backing band the Wondermints have instead given us something on par with 1970s Beach Boys--kinda bloated, kinda silly, mostly out of date, but with enough earnestness and pop intuition to be so, so, so puerile that hating it would be like hating Raffi. |
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| n/a by www.spin.com |
Sweetly and unmistakably, That Lucky Old Sun limns the sunset of Wilson's career, while still showing how California is at its most beautiful through his eyes. |
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| n/a by Pitchfork Media |
But now I'm back. And he is, with his finest non-Smile album since the golden age of the Beach Boys. Lucky us. |
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| n/a by www.musicomh.com |
That Lucky Old Sun is a brave but failed attempt to add a new chapter to the ongoing story of a pop legend. |
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| n/a by www.nowtoronto.com |
It appears that Wilson came up with a couple of tunes about his own troubled life but realized it might be too much of a bummer, so he tacked on a few happy-sappy Beach Boys throwbacks to make for a sunny little song cycle about a magical place filled with sun, sand and surfer girls. |
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| n/a by www.tinymixtapes.com |
Wilson continues to rehash southern California culture with increasingly less perspective, further eschewing the untamed adolescent aesthetic by including stuffy musical theater elements and a top-down point-of-view thats more clumsy analysis than sincere memoir. |
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| n/a by www.austinchronicle.com |
Whereas 2004's epic completion of Smile allowed the Beach Boy to rewrite (and right) history, his follow-up plays like the ultimate product of that self-examination. |
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| n/a by www.cokemachineglow.com |
Though absent any truly great songs, That Lucky Old Sun is the most engaged and consistent effort from pops lonely genius in decades. |
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