There have been some totally great albums released this year - Total Control's Henge Beat, Homo by The UV Race and OBN III's self titled debut - but the one at the top of my listening piles (records at home, CD on the bus, MP3 at work) happens to be one of the most multi-dimensional, ambitious-yet-cohesive collections I have heard, heartfelt without ever being cloying.
The young man behind it is Mikal Cronin, and the record shares that name. Until recently a relatively unheralded mainstay of the young garage-pop explosion on West Coast USA, Mikal has crafted an album that deservedly means he will no longer be mentioned solely for his contributions to bands like the Moonhearts or his work with Ty Segall. The excellent Trouble In Mind Records have put out many other good records by his contemporaries, but now it’s out the quality of this release and the attention it has drawn makes it look like a major coup for a label of their small size.
The songs follow a fairly conventional order, possibly because the artefact as a whole is presented as a finely conceived, grown up long-player, complete with ‘classic album’ sleeve. As such, the pop gems (of which there are many) are littered throughout the running order, interspersed with stranger numbers. The catchier tunes are often just as experimental as the far out ones, complete with nuts flute solos (in stereo), 'Hey Jude' references, and ramshackle codas that descend into entropy.
'Is It Alright' is the perfect album opener, and the complex harmonies ideally set out the "I mean business" stall. Following it is the finest song present, 'Apathy', and it’s comfortably the most interesting pause-laden song I've heard. Stop-starters are often irritating, but this one never loses momentum. Side A closes with an apparently home-recorded, mournful lament - 'Slow Down' - that subtly echoes the song directly preceding it.
The flip side continues in much the same high-quality vein, with all the recordings sounding sufficiently alike to expertly frame Cronin taking stock of his life and beginning to plot what comes next. That's not to say the album is samey, as there is more than enough invention, vivacity and style here to easily avoid this - the record perfectly nails the balance between song-solidarity and contrast.
'Gone' ties Cronin most closely to his immediate peers, as there are some go-to chord progressions that that scene tend to use (I use the s-word in the best possible way - nurturing and cooperative, as opposed to trying to get seen in the right places).
From the seems-easy-until-you-try-it intro ‘til the everything-falls-apart ending thirty-four minutes later, Cronin fully fleshes out his introspective ponderings whilst, commendably, not once disappearing up his own arsehole. I’d love to have the mixture of talents required to make a record like this. Bastard.