MIKE KROL:
I Hate Jazz: 10”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Holy moly. First record I can think of in recent memory that came from a band that I’ve never heard of that—as soon as I drop the needle on the record—it blows me away immediately. Internet searches for Mike Krol provide little information other than that he played drums in a couple bands in Wisconsin and Connecticut and makes his living doing graphic design. The design element comes through clearly, as the artwork is quite sharp, with the colors and fonts used uniformly throughout the record, front and back, inside and out. It looks like it could be an early Talking Heads record. Musically, it starts off with a little garagey jingle jangle of the guitar, but then warmly played keyboards and naïf-like vocals come in, and those jingle jangle guitars turn in to rich, full, smartly tuned and timed thrashes and all of a sudden shards of post-punk and indie rock start flying everywhere and it all kind of adds up to something like Atom And His Package with a full band. This is a winner, easily the MVP of the new batch of review materials. White vinyl, hand-numbered, and comes with download card. –Jeff Proctor (Counter Counter Culture)