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Aug 1, 2018Kill the Lights is pretty, relatable and doesn’t have time to overstay its welcome.
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Aug 1, 2018Kill the Lights, his second full-length, follows 2016’s largely acoustic Confront the Truth and 2014’s moderately more abrasive Dissed and Dismissed and amps up the voltage somewhat, especially in the anthemic “Jasper’s Theme,” site of this disc’s best electric guitar licks.
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Aug 1, 2018Molina's efficiency as a composer is in no way a flaw, but instead one of his greatest strengths. Molina is aware that sometimes the most powerful statements are the short and concise ones, and his ability to do so is crystal clear throughout Kill the Lights.
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Jul 31, 2018It makes a complicated formula sound so effortlessly simple. And that's not something you can do with little effort or care.
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Jul 30, 2018It’s clear Molina has grand ambitions here. But by confining them to a flyer-sized canvas, Kill the Lights becomes his first record that will have you not just marveling at everything Molina can pack into a 60-second song, but also lamenting what he might be leaving out.
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Jul 27, 2018On Kill the Lights, though, he makes the arduous process of self-editing sound simple; with no fat or frills, the melodies shine through in gorgeous fashion.
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Jul 27, 2018Kill The Lights is one of the best albums to come out so far this year, and you can listen to it four times in an hour and still not be bored. That’s great songwriting.
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Jul 27, 2018A smoke break’s worth of Molina songs every few years is not enough. They’re that good. And they’re better than ever on his new album Kill the Lights, which finds him adding full-band arrangements and electricity back into his songs and steering straight into pop-rock heaven.
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Jul 27, 2018It may lack some of the bite of his best work with his previous project Ovens and his early solo releases, but it's nice to follow his career as he grows and experiments (gently) with new sounds and a new-ish approach, while still delivering songs that are super-hooky and flat-out nice to listen to.
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Jul 27, 2018Molina once seemed poised to become a reliable purveyor of sticky throwback pop. But absent the visceral thrill of his early work, or anything new or profound to say about grief and heartache, Kill the Lights offers little more than the sum of its influences.