Let It Burn, GospelbeacH’s fourth album, is a thing of beauty tinged with incredible sadness. Shortly before its release, Neal Casal, who had recently rejoined the band, took his own life, a fact which can’t be ignored as one listens to the album. The opening number, Bad Habits, rams this home as the band sway through this sad ballad which is blessed with a beautifully realised and lyrical guitar solo while the lyrics, unintentionally of course, could serve as an epitaph for a troubled mind.

Casal had played on Gospelbeach’s first album but, with a finger in many pies, had only recently come back to the fold for the recording of Let It Burn. His presence is but one aspect here which allows one to suggest that the album is the best so far from Brent Rademaker’s reimagined California cosmic crew. There’s still plenty of punchy power pop and rock as evidenced on the excellent Tom Petty groove of Dark Angel, the snarling blend of new wave punk and west coast rock of I’m So High, and the organ swelled barrelhouse roustabout of Nothing Ever Changes while the closing song, Hoarder, slinks and shimmies with a Little Feat like sinuosity. Much of the album however is more considered and introspective with less of the jingle jangle as Rademaker and fellow songwriter, Trevor Beld Jiminez, delve into darker territory.

Good Kid is a badlands narrative delivered with a Steely Dan like flow but the meat of the disc is in three songs tucked away in the middle of the album. Baby (It’s All Your Fault) and Get It All Back are infused with the melancholic pop sensibility of Alex Chilton back in his Big Star days. The former has some wonderful guitar moments, George Harrison like slide alongside pedal steel, while the latter glides gracefully over swathes of mellotron. Fighter cries out with a defiant peal as Rademaker plays the outsider who refuses to lie down. It’s a big production number, swathed in strings with rippling piano and voice effects before closing with another epic guitar solo from Casal, a fitting legacy.

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What with the price of coal being what it is, here’s another way to keep warm this winter, a new album from the sun dappled GospelbeacH, purveyors of prime California sunshine jangled pop. Another Winter Alive is not in fact, a full-blown follow up to the excellent Another Summer of Love, rather it’s a collection of songs recorded for that album which didn’t make the final cut, supplemented by a short live set, recorded at The Betsey Trotwood in London. Some might suspect that this is a quick cash in by the band or record company to hoover up some bucks before Christmas but we’d consider it more in the tradition of releases such as The Smiths’ Hatful of Hollow, an attempt to allow fans to hear songs which otherwise would languish in a vault somewhere.

Anyhow. The album kicks off with the five studio recordings beginning with an excellent version of fellow traveller, Neal Casal’s Freeway To The Canyon. This is just perfection, from the jangled guitar intro and the slightly wearied harmonies to the organ fills and trippy guitar solo the song flows as sweetly as a Topanga Canyon stream summoning up visions of latter-day Byrds. Down South is somewhat more baroque with its signature changes and closing honky tonk piano knees up with the guitars here having a George Harrison touch to their slips and slides. Running Blind takes a left turn in a more turbo charged direction with a fuzz toned organ riff leading the charge until halfway through the song spaces out into cosmic Americana territory with pedal steel gliding adrift amidst sound effects and heavenly harmonising. It’s back to the main drag however for the perfect power pop of Change of Heart, a Petty like number which will knock the socks off of you while Dreamin’ is more laidback, an attractive slice of harmony soft rock which is, indeed, sun dappled.

The live songs feature Brent Rademaker, Jonny Niemann and Jason Soda playing in a London pub in a kind of unplugged set up on guitars and keyboard (although one of the guitars is plugged in). There’s a splendidly ragged version of California Steamer, and then a fine reading of Out of My Mind (On Cope & Reed) with Rademaker doing his best Lou Reed impression and the trio out doing the studio version for sheer energy and passion. Miller Lite (originally called Sunshine Skyway on the first album) is a light hearted tale of a bohemian surfing jobs on the road in Florida with Rademaker urging the audience to join in with the great line, “is this a pub or a morgue?” They nail the romance and mystery of In The Desert and finish off with in a similar manner on You’re Already Home, another song which reeks of seventies long haired freedom with the trio harmonising well in the live setting.

As football commentators might say, it’s an album of two halves. The studio songs are excellent, the live songs a very welcome addition. Those new to the band might best be directed to either of the two previous albums but for fans, this is an excellent stocking filler.

If, as usual, our summer is somewhat wet and dreary then I can think of no better remedy than to get a sun lamp, a sand pit, dig out the Bermuda shorts and stick this album on the stereo. Brent Rademaker (Beachwood sparks, Further and The Tyde) returns with GospelbeacH’s second album which, if anything, is sunnier than its predecessor. That album, Pacific Surf Line, was a glorious recreation of sixties and seventies sun kissed LA pop and rock and Another Summer Of Love continues in a similar vein although there’s a stronger seam of jangled Byrds, Big Star and Tom Petty running throughout it. With all songs written by Rademaker and Trevor Beld Jiminez they rise way above pastiche, the album packed with glorious melodies and harmonies that are infused with their forebears but stand up on their own two feet.

The album opens with the splendid harmonies of In The Desert which recalls those USAF orphans, America while the refrain is a sly nod to The Jam’s In The City. The song wafts wonderfully (whatever that means but you can probably work it out) before some spiralling electric guitars waft it even higher. You’re Already Home is another nod to those LA troubadours of yore with Brewer & Shipley perhaps the inspiration here while I Don’t Wanna Lose You has a very fine  Topanga Canyon yearning while its inventive arrangement at times suggests that this is what the Blue Oyster Cult might have sounded like if they had grown up in Burbank. The excellent (i wanna see you) All The Time is Petty central with a soundalike George Harrison slide guitar solo while The City Limits hones in on Alex Chilton’s melancholic glory.

There’s some muscle with the punchy Hangin’ On and the clenched fist riff of California Fantasy but they achieve their apogee on two songs which amalgamate all of the above. Strange Days is a menacing welter of guitars and keyboards with the lyrics somewhat akin to Gene Clark’s zen like fatalism. Runnin’ Blind, which closes the album, is a souped up amalgamation of Ray Charles and Alejandro Escovedo riffs with an ethereal middle eight. A fine end to what is a really fine record.

And just as I finish this news came in of a UK tour from GospelbeacH including a Glasgow date. Certainly one to put in the diary.

• August 19 @ Green Man ’17 — Brecon Beacons, Wales UK
• August 21 @ Prince Albert — Brighton, UK
• August 22 @ Betsey Trotwood / BRENT RADEMAKER acoustic — London, UK
• August 23 @ Moth Club — London, UK
• August 25 @ Mono — Glasgow, UK
• August 26 @ The Crescent — York, UK
• August 27 @ The Castle — Manchester, UK

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