Brian Wilson's first solo album in over six years, "Getting In Over My Head", comes on the back of something of a critical renaissance. Recent solo tours - first, "Pet Sounds", in 2002, and then this year's reprisal of "Smile" - have seen the former Beach Boy re-write the rulebook for journalistic superlatives. Twenty years ago few would have placed money on him being alive in 2004, never mind reviving his lost 1967 psychedelic masterpiece.
But, reviving lost psychedelic masterpieces is one thing, creating a viable album of new material is quite another. Wilson's first comeback LP (1988's "Brian Wilson") was littered with gems like "Love & Mercy" but 1998's "Imagination" was mired by a horribly sterile production.
"Gettin In..." aims to bypass such issues by simply replicating the sounds of his glory days. With the sympathetic backing of The Wondermints such a feat is eminently possible. The downside is a record over-laden with pastiche, right down to it's Peter Blake-designed sleeve.
Opening cut, "How Could We Still Be Dancin", a duet with Elton John, is a case in point. Instantly transporting us back to the mid-70s and Beach Boys LPs like "15 Big Ones" or "Love You", it's an unashamedly retro workout. You can almost picture Jools Holland banging along, but the music swells up in that familiar Wilson style and the concluding harmonies are suitably gorgeous. Better still is "Soul Searchin'" which revives a lost vocal from the late Carl Wilson.
Yet, hereafter, the album starts to lose its way. Some nice acapella touches aside on "You've Touched Me" and "Don't Let Her Know She's An Angel" the rest of the material seems slight. Wilson would have surely sold the likes of "Desert Drive" to a lesser group in 1963, while the lyrical sentiments of "Make A Wish" and "Rainbow Eyes" are, well, sentimental. Gooily so. In Wilson's Disneyfied take on love and life it's forever 1962 - if we could only wish and think and hope and pray then it'd all work out fine.
Even much-lauded guest spots from Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton add little. Had the three got together in 1966 the results could have been stunning. Nearly forty years later and it's ever so slightly embarrassing.
Nobody expects Wilson to make another "Pet Sounds" - genius of such magnitude is always fleeting and, anyway, he's already been there and done that. After spending the best part of his life travelling in the extremities who would want to send him back? For the purists out there, he's already promised to re-record "Smile" for later in the year.
It's probably safer to view "Gettin In..." as the sound of an old man lying back in the ocean with well-deserved drink. A straight-up collection of rock n roll songs that he probably enjoyed playing on as much as anything else in his bizarre life. In short, Brian Wilson sounds at peace. He's still singin' and he's still dancin' and after what he's achieved and been through who could begrudge him that?
