Please Come Back, Mikal Cronin

One of the most underrated songwriters of the 2010s, Mikal Cronin grew up in Laguna Beach, a tony coastal community between Los Angeles and San Diego. He and fellow high school classmate Ty Segall were both fans of surfing and indie rock. Cronin started out as a member of Segall’s band. Then, they recorded a mini album together in 2009 called Reverse Shark Attack. If you listen carefully through all the fuzz and noise, you can hear something primordial crawling out of the swamp. It’s most clear on the album’s closing title track, which sounds the most like where Cronin was headed as a solo artist.

Cronin’s eponymous debut solo album didn’t drop until 2011, with guest appearances by Segall and John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees. While the album is the weakest of the four solo albums Cronin released in the 2010s, there are at least two songs you have to check out right away: “Get Along” and “Again and Again.” If you don’t like those, then Mikal Cronin may not be for you. The other two tracks I enjoy are the Brian Wilson-y album opener “Is it Alright” and “Gone.”

They were enough to get him noticed and signed by Merge Records, the indie label founded by Mac McCaughan (of Superchunk and Portastatic) and Laura Ballance, whose early releases included Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Magnetic Fields’ 99 Songs About Love, Arcade Fire’s only great albums (the first 3 1/2), and Spoon’s classic run of albums in the 2000s.

MCII, released in 2013, was a quantum leap forward, a damn near perfect, jangly indie rock album with a much cleaner sound than its predecessor. This is where I sat up and wondered, “who the hell is this guy?” The way he blends acoustic and electric guitar, vocal harmonies, and the pop melodicism of 60s and 70s California artists like the Beach Boys (but more guitar driven and garage-y in its orientation), the Byrds, and non-California artists like Big Star and Matthew Sweet makes it completely irresistible. For me anyway. I can’t even single out one track vs. another. As I said, it’s damn near perfect.

So when MCIII dropped in 2015, I couldn’t wait to hear it. The first five songs are even better than MCII for fleshing out some of the songs with strings, horns, and keybs, giving his songs the bigger sound they deserve. The moment when the horn comes in a minute into “Say” is transcendent. And I don’t like that song any more than the other four. Shit, Tom Petty would have loved this record.

The second half of the album, tracks 6-11, is an almost orchestral song suite with the exception of the grunge-y “Gold” and the Ramones-y punk pop blast of “Ready.” It also contains at least two perfect acoustic jangle pop songs in “Control”and album closer “Circle.” It’s ambitious, without being pretentious, and it’s almost equal to its ambitions.

Bottom line: MCIII is the one of the best albums of the 2010s, and almost no one knows it. Let’s rectify that, shall we?

It would be a long four years before Cronin dropped his fourth and final (?) album, Seeker, and it wasn’t what his fans were expecting. It’s a little less catchy and more complex with a hint of Neil Young & Crazy Horse in the songwriting. Not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all. And like MCII and III, there’s not a weak track on it. It’s just more of a “grower” than a “shower.” Though “Show Me” has a little of Petty’s “Last Dance With Mary Jane” in its DNA. And there’s even a Beatle-esque psych-pop vibe on “I’ve Got Reason.” But the whole of this album is greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Point is, this guy had game in the 2010s and released three albums in a row with no weak songs on them. But where did he go? It’s been six years with no new music, except for a collection of instrumentals in 2023 called The Mask that only deepens the mystery.

Please come back, Mikal Cronin. The times seem to be catching up with your last album. Exhibit A: MJ Lenderman.

In the meantime, enjoy this clip of a very young Cronin live with Ty Segall and the rest of his band performing a fun song from MCII.