Album: The Beach Boys, That's Why God Made the Radio (EMI)

For Beach Boys fans, hope constantly triumphs over experience: we keep hoping they'll make another Pet Sounds, but we know they're only likely to make another 20/20 or Wild Honey, at best.

Brian Wilson's return as creative mainspring meant hopes were especially high for That's Why God Made The Radio, but again, it's pitifully thin stuff, with far too many nostalgic hankerings, none of them as hypnotically potent as “Do It Again”, and some, like “Spring Vacation”, insultingly lazy: “We're back together/Easy money, ain't life funny”. “From There to Back Again” and “Summer's Gone” are the saving graces.

Download: From There to Back Again; Summer's Gone