Best Coast Sophomore Album

NEW BEST COAST ALBUM AVAILABLE IN CANADA TODAY

Story by Laura Cappe
Photo by David Black

Like every twenty-something, Bethany Cosentino is just trying to figure it all out. With Best Coast’s sunshine fuzzy debut album “Crazy For You”, Cosentino penned raw, quirky anthems about unrequited love, heartbreak and her cat Snacks that made you feel as if you were listening to her sing in her a bedroom with hairbrush microphone in hand. “I wish he was my boyfriend, I wish he was my boyfriend…” she chanted. Now, two years after her debut release, Consentino takes us from her bedroom to her tour bus.

Best Coast’s sophomore album “The Only Place” is a polished emblem of nostalgia that touches on themes such as growing up, coming of age and everything else that goes along with being in your 20s. On this record, it is clear that her quick rise to indie fame and constant traveling on the road has altered her perceptions of life. The teenage love songs and the lust she once felt for the boy in “Crazy For You” have been replaced by her longing for home (“The Only Place”, “Let’s Go Home”) and a more defined sense of self (“Last Year”, “How They Want Me To Be”, “Better Girl”). There just always seems to be something to complain about.

The songs remain simple in melody, redundant in lyrics and has a similar California surf sound as the first album, although this time around we get a piece that’s cleaner and – like Bethany herself – more mature. With the help of producer Jon Brion (who has worked on albums for artists like Kanye West and Fiona Apple) “The Only Place” is a fresh departure from the fuzzed out lo-fi girly pop of “Crazy For You”. Best Coast fans may not be thrilled with the production, the lyrical themes, or even her letting go of her old vices (weed), but just like everything else change is good.