Mike Krol
Turkey
MERGE
6/10
Is he sarcastic or actually seething with real, gulp, feelings? Like controlled chaos, Mike Krol’s meticulous navigation of noise on his third record Turkey casts a strong vote for the latter. At a breakneck nineteen minutes, his sandblasted debut for Merge is no major revelation, but it’s still a fun exercise in warts-and-all verité pop punk complete with cheeky hints to the earliest hits of rock and roll. “This is the News” quotes The Isley Brothers’ 1959 smash “Shout!” “I want to be with you,” Krol nearly screams. “I know our love is true / Baby, this is the news—a little bit louder now!” rol’s is a warbling whine of a voice that takes some getting used to. But the conviction is clear, especially when “Left Out (ATTN: So-Cal Garage Rockers)” reaches a scuzzy, bedroom doo-wop zenith and he abandons a rickety soapbox for an extended, near anthemic “woo!” Sometimes “woo” really is all there is to say.
