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May 7, 2013When artists soften with time, their music often loses some of its appeal; rarely does a songwriter nail his voice as successfully as Cronin has here.
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May 20, 2013As vital as the air that you breathe, you need this album in your life.
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May 10, 2013Over ten songs detailing a young man's despair and self-doubt, he delivers a performance that's both deeply confident and convincingly vulnerable, replete with stark, piano-based meditations and fuzz-pedal-abetted fury.
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May 6, 2013Already so many people have been championing 2013 as the strongest year for music in recent memory, and they’re not wrong, but here’s an album that has the punch and wit to stick around with the best.
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UncutMay 2, 2013MCII hits you with the immediacy of a record that you're listening to for the first time but feel like you've already heard a thousand times and yet still aren't bored of. [Jun 2013, p.70]
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Jun 4, 2013On MCII, it’s a dual-edged sword that he brandishes skillfully into a scintillating sophomore record, one stacked with some of the year’s best pop-rock tunes.
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May 2, 2013He's an excellent pop craftsman who knows how to turn the power up for maximum effect.
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May 15, 2013As an album set out to reappropriate pop rock, MCII succeeds.
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May 7, 2013Far from formulaic, Cronin’s sophomore release, MCII, is a nuanced collage of quintessentially “California” pop songs--or, at the very least, how the rest of the country perceives such songs to look and feel.
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MojoMay 20, 2013Cronin delvers timeless, classic pop that evades cliches. [Jun 2013, p.86]
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May 20, 2013Cronin is never changing the pace or tone just for the heck of it, rather seeking out different ways for him to push himself as an artist, as some of the cross-references on MCII would suggest.
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May 14, 2013While Cronin’s musical expertise belies his age, the existential struggles about which he sings--fear of the world, distrust of love, lack of self-confidence--do not.
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May 13, 2013It’s a record that sees Mikal Cronin finding his way as a songwriter in his own right.
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May 13, 2013Listen in and the lyrics soundtrack a mid-youth crisis ("I've been starting over for a long time," Cronin croons as the album opens), but not so as to dent the overall impression of an ozone high.
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MagnetMay 10, 2013MCII never quite gets to the point of pastiche, but its fondness for grunge-era distortion and '60s-style harmonies makes it entirely contemporary. [No. 98, p.53]
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May 10, 2013MCII sounds much more concise and meticulously assembled than any of Segall's efforts.
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May 9, 2013Part of how Cronin succeeds in making the listener feel good are his failures: the outsized ambition and the pushing of his practical capacities remind the listener than they’re being spoken to by an everyman.
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May 6, 2013Power pop may not be as ubiquitous or even as relevant as it was in the Raspberries’ prime, but it still can be done well... just ask Mikal Cronin.
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May 6, 2013This is an album that exudes playfulness, treating genre as something that's malleable and isn't afraid to poke open wounds if it means creating a piece of art that connects emotionally.
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Alternative PressMay 2, 2013"Piano Mantra" is ambitious, but he pulls it all off in an epic way--which could be said for MCII as a whole. [Jun 2013, p.92]
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May 2, 2013Cronin offers new experiments on MCII, but errs just enough on the side of caution to create a fantastic pop record.
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May 2, 2013The melodies sound effortless, but there’s complexity under the surface.
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May 23, 2013That MCII can jump from sound to sound isn’t a surprise; but at times it does make for a slightly schizophrenic listen.
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May 9, 2013If Mikal Cronin had a lot going on in his life (exiting college, a relationship, and life in L.A.) around the release of his 2011 debut album, MCII is the sound of someone who moved on and found solid ground.
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May 6, 2013Cronin's second album is a step forward from his debut and shows off a guy with enough talent to step out from behind Segall's shadow and make it on his own.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 39 out of 41
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Mixed: 1 out of 41
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Negative: 1 out of 41
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May 7, 2013
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Dec 1, 2013
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Jun 1, 2013