Mikal Cronin - Seeker (2019) Hi-Res

For his fourth solo album, the southern California rocker retreated to a cabin and wrote songs full of doubt and existential anxiety. To overcome an uncharacteristic bout of writer’s block, Mikal Cronin took the took the time-honored sequester-yourself-in-a-cabin approach and emerged with the songs on Seeker, his fourth solo album. A longtime collaborator with other Southern California acts, he enlisted members of the Ty Segall Freedom Band, and despite that group’s penchant for raucousness, out came a mild, confounding blend of twangy power pop, like reaching for half and half and guzzling skim. Cronin’s wistful vocals land on lofty themes—death, rebirth, cleansing fire—but the sound itself is a shrug, a noncommittal exploration of big ideas that never quite reaches an exclamation point, let alone a big impact.

“I feel it all,” Cronin insists on the track of the same name, and yet, over the plinks of piano keys, one might ask impatiently, “What? What do you feel?!” For an album supposedly full of introspection, Seeker remains frustratingly vague. On the song “Fire,” which (as he tells it) gave the record its direction, he sings “red embers float above the front yard.” It’s an image that ought to carry some apocalyptic menace, but his delivery suggests falling leaves instead.

Cronin’s music has always been ingratiating, but that quality works against his material here, which yearns for something deeper or darker. There are clear limits to the affability that makes some of his previous singles so winsome. “Show Me” starts by teasing some serpentine Tom Petty power chords, and Cronin has a cocksure delivery, but the simmer is cooled by a tepid chorus. The song, like many on Seeker, feels like an almost-anthem, a half-decent rock song a few jolts and surprises away from becoming a good one.

“Caravan” is another example of this “almost, not quite” feeling. The chugging distorted guitars snarl at us and a saxophone honks, raising faint hopes of some Stooges-style mayhem, but the bar-band chug stays contentedly mid-tempo. Lacking a hook, many of these songs feel unsure of what exactly they’re meant to be—a ballad a la Big Star’s “September Gurls” (particularly “Lost a Year”)? Garage rock?

On closer “On the Shelf,” he sits down with just an acoustic guitar and reconnects to some of the warmth and immediacy of his best work. He’s always had a good ear for affecting closers, and the song could be straight from the back half of Big Star’s #1. “We’ll fall in love and fuck the nonsense; it’s not for us,” he sings, charmingly. It’s the only real cri de coeur on the album, the only time he seems to stare us directly in the eyes.