record reviews

Beach Boys

Album: “That’s Why God Made the Radio” (Capitol)

Grade: A

There’s a fine line between recreating your timeless signature sound and becoming a nostalgia act for your own music. It happens so much these days with older artists and their numerous comebacks, but not the Beach Boys.

The band reunited earlier this year for its 50th anniversary: They’re on a major tour, and now they have a new album. “That’s Why God Made the Radio” has a retro sound as if they were following up their seminal 1966 album, “Pet Sounds.”

That baroque-pop classic bore such hits as “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and the haunting “Caroline, No.” And though this new collection of songs may not hold an aesthetic candle to that great record, it does have some real catchy tunes. Tracks such as “Shelter” and “Daybreak Over the Ocean” feel more like newly discovered tracks from a session 40 years ago instead of being recorded last year.

Maybe that’s because Brian Wilson came back to the band after his decades-long absence. Regarded as one of popular music’s true geniuses, his return invigorates the album with the band’s trademark sound. His contributions came in a big way — he produced the album and co-wrote 11 of the albums 12 tracks.

— John Carucci, Associated Press

NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE

Album: “Americana” (Warner Bros.)

Grade: C

Every decade or so, Neil Young still circles back from his various and sundry projects to record with Crazy Horse, the ornery and unkempt-sounding, amped-up outfit with whom he has recorded many of his most revered records, dating back to “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” in 1969. And thank goodness for that. But while Young fans will be thankful to hear him cut loose once again with compadres Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina and Frank Sampedro, the selection of material on the all-covers “Americana” is puzzling, to say the least.

There’s pleasure to be had in hearing the band rev up and lumber through “This Land Is Your Land” and “Wayfaring Stranger,” to be sure, and the out-and-out triumph that one hopes stays in the live set list is “High Flying Bird,” the Billy Edd Wheeler song most closely associated with Richie Havens. But there’s also frustration in that, as great as it is to hear Young and the Horse riding together again, there are no great revelations offered.

— Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer

Alan Jackson

Album: “Thirty Miles West” (ACR/EMI Nashville)

Grade: B

Alan Jackson opens his new album, “Thirty Miles West,” with a song suggesting that if reincarnation exists, he will return as a country song. No other artist of his generation deserves this destiny more, for no other has better represented the traditions of country music than this Georgia native.

His first album to be distributed by EMI after more than two decades with Arista Records, “Thirty Miles West” accentuates Jackson’s best attributes — an assured yet relaxed baritone; arrangements that accentuate melodies and rely on fiddle, steel guitar and honky-tonk piano; and lyrics that are homespun and personal, all relaying a philosophy of living simply and with deep affection for family and roots.

A prolific songwriter, Jackson this time selects seven songs written by others — a wise choice, considering they include “So You Don’t Have to Love Me Anymore,” the best ballad of 2012 so far, and the swinging “Life Keeps Bringin’ Me Down.”

— Michael McCall, Associated Press