January 21, 2013

Camper Van Beethoven’s eighth album and first in eight years revives the character study of American oddities the band’s reunion record, New Roman Times, hatched way back in 2004. On La Costa Perdida, Camper keeps the crazies confined to small-town California in this second ode to scandal and scoundrels, among them a fugitive speaking broken Spanish and harboring a secret he can’t outrun. This “half-aware-o caballero” of the album’s upbeat title track kills off his woman and goes on the lam, all the while snarling a half-sinister warning: “You don’t wanna know.”