''California Nights'' is the third studio album by American

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

duo

Best Coast Best Coast is an American rock duo formed in Los Angeles, California in 2009. The band consists of songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Bethany Cosentino and guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno. Cosentino, a former child actress, began ...

. It was released on May 1, 2015, by

Harvest Records Harvest Records is a British-American record label belonging to Capitol Music Group, originally created by EMI in 1969. History Harvest Records was created by EMI in 1969 to market progressive rock music, and to compete with Philips' Vertigo ...

. It was produced by

Wally Gagel Wally Gagel is an American, multi platinum, award-winning record producer, audio engineer, mixer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. His current work with Blondfire, Zella Day, Best Coast, Hunter Hunted, The Mowglis and Redlight King has garne ...

, who also produced the duo's 2013 EP '' Fade Away''. The band announced the album along with tour dates and the release of a "dreamlike" video directed by Adam Harding for the title track, which also served as the lead single. On the band's official website, singer-songwriter Bethany Cosentino described the band's approach to the making of the album, stating: "In LA, there's a real darkness that you don't see unless you know where to look. That's a theme we very consciously decided to explore and play with when making this record. We related to the idea that things may ''look'' or ''sound'' fun and upbeat, but they may not actually always ''be'' that way." A video for second single "Heaven Sent" directed by Lana Kim and Cosentino was released on April 1, 2015. Third single "Feeling Ok" followed in mid-April, which the duo performed on '' Conan'' on May 5. "In My Eyes" was serviced to US

alternative radio Modern rock is an umbrella term used to describe rock music that is found on college rock radio stations. Some radio stations use this term to distinguish themselves from classic rock, which is based in 1960s–1980s rock music. Radio format Mod ...

on February 23, 2016, as the album's fourth single. Two outtakes from the album sessions, "Late 20s" and "Bigger Man", were released on an exclusive

Record Store Day Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2007 and held on one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". The day brings together fa ...

release in April 2016.

Critical reception

''California Nights'' has received generally positive reviews from music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a

weighted mean The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 69 based on 26 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of ''California Nights''. Best Coast * Bethany Cosentino – guitar, vocals * Bobb Bruno – guitar, bass, keyboards Technical * Wally Gagel – production, recording, mixing * Seth Olansky – assistance * Vincent Silva – assistance *

Howie Weinberg Howie Weinberg is an American audio mastering engineer with over 2,257 mastering credits, three TEC Awards, 21 Grammy Awards, two Juno Awards, and one Mercury Prize. Career Weinberg mastered Herbie Hancock's 1983 album ''Future Shock''. Other m ...

– mastering * Gentry Studer – mastering assistance Additional musicians * Brady Miller – drums, guitar, percussion, keyboards *

– percussion, bass synthesizer, keyboards, guitar Artwork * Janell Shirtcliff – photography * Lawrence Azerrad – design

Charts

Release history

References

{{Authority control 2015 albums Best Coast albums Harvest Records albums