While the new Mikal Cronin record will likely appeal to a whole bunch of people because of Mikal's connection to Ty Segall, the reality is that Cronin needs no such hook to sell this. Seeker, out on Friday via Merge Records, builds upon whatever tradition was laid in the last two decades of American indie. the tradition that saw artists attempt to write classic pop songs while outside the mainstream. The music here feels like both a furtherance of those styles, and something that stands perfectly on its own.
If opener "Shelter" is a bit funky, with sort of a solo Lennon vibe about it, "Show Me" is more obviously direct. The cut is as much in debt to the singer-songwriter boom of the Seventies as it is to American indie of two decades later. Cronin uses something like "Fire" to work out his method of crafting a tune from a simple, slow-building figure, while "Sold" is elegant and elegiac. And while some of this ("Caravan") gets nearly lost in the grooves that are unfolding, most of what's here is expertly constructed and performed. One listens to a number like "I've Got Reason" and hears all the same things that routinely inspire Cronin's some-time band-mate Ty Segall, but one hears other things too: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Jon Brion. All that stuff is here but Mikal has opted instead for a subtle approach in flinging it all together, such that Cronin seems more invested in crafting good pop songs, even if at moments his material roars like that of Segall's stuff. In the end, Mikal Cronin is more of a classicist and Seeker is, despite a faint moment or two, a masterpiece of structured indie-pop.
Seeker is out on Friday via Merge Records.
More details on Mikal Cronin via his official Facebook page, or via his official website.
[Photo: Max Mendelsohn]