Mikal Cronin - Mikal Cronin Review

Stomping with sincerity... or... sincerely stomping? One of those, anyways.

Mikal Cronin - Mikal Cronin (2011) – 8.4 / 10.0
Trouble in Mind:

Mikal Cronin, of raging San Francisco snarlers, Moonhearts, thrillingly, has dropped his first solo album, and boy oh boy, is it a doozy. Cronin is a tight bro from way back when with Ty Segall (who produced here), and his work both with the ‘hearts and as a solo artist does well to indicate that Cronin, like Segall, is at the forefront of the apparently ever-growing Bay Area garage rock hivemind. Just to clarify, that is a good thing.

Whereas Segall’s first few solo exploits started off as more traditional Nuggets style fuzz and stomp, a sound that has not so much mellowed as ripened on this year’s Goodbye Bread, Cronin lets fly with a sonically diverse, but nevertheless ripping, cache of tunes on his self titled debut for Trouble in Mind, right out of the gate.

Over the course of the album, Cronin plays fast and loose with the rules of might be normally expected by a garage rock listener. Opening track, ‘Is it Alright’ begins with a Beach Boys styled vocal harmony, and quickly explodes into a flute duel (!) as intense as any seen this side of a gay porn shoot. Mikal Cronin goes on from there to explore more emotionally raw territory (the vocals and organ balladry of ‘Slow Down’), hound dog howl (‘Get Along’), power pop (Again and Again), and even features one of 2011’s more intense shoegazy psych-rockers (Green and Blue).

While it may barely seem worth noting that Mikal Cronin (and Mikal Cronin) owes a heavy debt to the Beatles, what surprises most here, is that the influence is most apparent not in the almost twangy, cavern clubbing proto-rock of ‘Situation’, but in the piano driven, Sgt. Pepper’s inspired epic trip of album closer, ‘The Way Things Go’, which starts with just Cronin’s lilting, Lennonesque vocals, but builds to a thunderous climax of keys, overdriven guitars, and, well, whistling, into a psychedelic, psychotic blast that ends with a short burst of Cronin’s effusive laughter. Hinting he has more up his sleeve, I think. Here's hoping so.