Mikal Cronin- Mikal Cronin

The San Francisco garage scene sure has exploded in the past five years. The newest (public) addition to this ever growing group is Mikal Cronin. While Cronin has been a part of the scene for a while, playing drums for Ty Segall, with The Moonhearts, and releasing a few singles, this is his first foray into long play recording. His eponymous debut is just beautiful. This here is a warm, satisfying and downright sexy pop record with perfect touches of everything from 60's rock and roll and surf to late nineties indie rock.

The lyrical content was devised during the winding down of Mikal's college career, but it is really the instrumentation and composition that shines in this record. The first song on the record, "Is it Alright" spends two and a half minutes where you think it could be, whimsical yet crunching garage rock. This song ends with a furious minute that crescendos with Jon Dwyer (Thee Oh Sees) playing a maddening muddle of a freakout flute solo. The record continues down this same path, finely walking the line between ravishing pop music and the true grit of rock and roll. In the song "Green and Blue," mixed up with a true wall of sound for garage rock, I hear a faint Kurt Cobain influence in the vocals of Mikal. I'll take it.

You should too. This is a great record, just dark enough to get you through the coming fall but still positive enough to not drive you off the deep end.

Trouble in Mind Records
2011

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