It's been almost two years since Justin Mikulka's last record, the extremely promising Sequels and Opposites. I don't know what he's been up to for the last twenty-three months, but it was clearly time well spent. Move Toward the Exit not only finds a better balance between Mikulka's recent country-blues extremes and the folk-grunge leanings of his earlier work, but finally makes full use of music's "spoonful of sugar", buffering his downbeat lyrics with pleasant, even hummable melodies.
The disc opens with the powerful "Whores and Love", a raw, aggressive track that picks up Mikulka's Cash Audio/Johnny Dowd persona where Sequels and Opposites left off. The white-hot energy remains, but it's no longer a spartan, one man/one guitar thing; raspy vocals and a nimble, distorted guitar line lead the charge, while solid percussion and subtle organ chords fill in the blanks, resulting in a seriously rocking tune.
If Mikulka had attempted to stretch "Whores and Love" into an entire album, I'd have spent the rest of this review scolding him. Fortunately, he drops the rasp-and-twang and heads for more challenging territory. In "Kept", he attempts a post-grunge power ballad, with surprisingly solid results. By rights, nothing that sounds like "Kept" should work; it's been beaten to death by alt-rock radio. However, because Mikulka avoids the vocal histrionics that push most artists over the top, the song sounds honest, and its massive chorus sticks in your head. "Repeating Lives" ups the folk quotient, pitching to a slightly smarter college-rock audience, with equal success; once again, there's a killer chorus waiting in the wings.
"Willfully Reverse" adds a minor textural upgrade -- there's some kind of reed instrument in the mix, possibly sampled. This makes an effective backdrop for the song, which would otherwise have been a standard guy/guitar outing. Mikulka also provides his own backing vocals, harmonizing nicely. "Waiting" intrigues further, grafting an angular, post-punk verse and processed vocals to a rich, rootsy chorus; once again, it shouldn't work, but Mikulka gets away with it.
Despite Move Toward the Exit's advances, Mikulka has quite a challenge ahead of him. His chosen genre isn't exactly underpopulated, and the market for blue-collar singer-songwriters can't support more than two or three artists at a time. His success will hinge on the first impressions of fickle listeners. There's a lot of this sort of music out there, after all -- but with the right breaks and the right tweaks, Mikulka could conceivably be as big as Wilco within a year or two.
It's a particular pleasure to see an artist like Mikulka, whose releases I've enjoyed and guardedly endorsed for the last few years, produce a record that I can recommend to friends and readers alike without reservation. If you're in the mood for an album that truly combines the sincerity of folk, the electric energy of the blues and the power of rock and roll, track down a copy of Move Toward the Exit today. Be warned: you'll be taking more of a risk buying it than Mikulka did making it; it's not a hugely adventurous, envelope-pushing disc. It's a simple, heartfelt work from a dedicated artist who has taken his music to the next level.
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