Kill The Lights

LOCAL! Unflagging West Bay advocate and king of the comically short pop song, really stretching out with this fifteen-minute album and two (TWO!) songs that top the two-minute mark. He still has the immediate hooks, but here he goes less noisy and raucous, opting to channel the Byrds in their early days—the spaced-out sunny vocal harmonies, the rainbow-like guitar melodies. This album was inspired by Molina’s jams with his friend Jasper Leach, who plays several instruments here and leads his own great local band called Burner Herzog. Also see Big Star, Guided By Voices, New Zealand guitar pop. All songs are great, but the personal favorites are 1, 2, 4, 5, 9. No FCCs detected.

1. *(1:11)—Medium-slow. Melodic, jangly, sweet. Near-perfect replica of the early Byrds sound.
2. *(1:17)—Mid-tempo, gentle fingerpicking, hushed, no drums. “Got to go back to the West Bay.” Nice organ.
3. (1:20)—Slow. Piano, strumming. Dreamy downer jam.
4. *(1:15)—Medium-slow, very “Norwegian Wood.” His old power solos now sound more like Bach on classical guitar.
5. *(2:02)—Medium-slow, sunny strumming. Big organ, soft harmonies. Byrds Byrds Byrds.
6. (1:24)—Mid-tempo lazy daze rock, a little more Gen X.
7. (1:24)—Mid-tempo acoustic strumming, no drums.
8. (2:26)—Slow, downcast. Wanders into 70s sad blues rock jammery before a soft ending. This is hella long. Next thing you know he’ll be breaking the three minute mark.
9. *(1:10)—Soft, sad fingerpicking. Close harmonies, kinda Simon and Garfunkel.
10. (1:01)—Instrumental. Slow. The power riffage is back in a muted way.