The Molochs

America’s Velvet Glory was the earliest burst of light and energy to hit in 2017, an album of electrified rock ‘n’ roll like <a href="spotify:artist:74ASZWbe4lXaubB36ztrGX" data-name="Bob Dylan">Bob Dylan</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:42TFhl7WlMRXiNqzSrnzPL" data-name="Lou Reed">Lou Reed</a>. Their first-ever record for LA&#39;s Innovative Leisure label, AVG sparked the Molochs&#39; first-ever U.S and European tours, first-ever festival sets, first-ever international press and more. (Top music mag Mojo even said they’d made one of the year’s best albums—“Any year!”) Flowers in the Spring bloomed almost exactly a year later at Long Beach’s Jazzcats studio, where founder/vocalist Lucas Fitzsimons and longtime band member Ryan Foster had recorded AVG.

As on Glory, inspiration from <a href="spotify:artist:6Lt3HS8R2v8Q4G7ZkUWa8R" data-name="Syd Barrett">Syd Barrett</a>, Dylan, <a href="spotify:artist:0gdggS1jCNKXzFbUcOsotf" data-name="Nikki Sudden">Nikki Sudden</a> and kindred spirit <a href="spotify:artist:1AcMngBo2RJdnnciklA9Cx" data-name="Peter Perrett">Peter Perrett</a> of <a href="spotify:artist:16VudBYGOd9sMpOtA0szfp" data-name="The Only Ones">The Only Ones</a> was at work, but the Molochs are endlessly ravenous when it comes to things to read and listen to and learn from. On Flowers they’d refine and recombine their sound, working in that long tradition of poets who cover (or discover) themselves in pop songs. “To Kick In A Lover’s Door” blows Flowers open with the wit and precision of the <a href="spotify:artist:4HCubdy7diarb4KZo8etrq" data-name="The Go-Betweens">The Go-Betweens</a> and “I Wanna Say To You” draws more from some of Creation Records&#39; dreamiest dreamers than it does from any esoteric 60s howlers. “Flowers In The Spring” and “Pages Of Your Journal” could be two lost <a href="spotify:artist:1SQRv42e4PjEYfPhS0Tk9E" data-name="The Kinks">The Kinks</a> singles from two different Kinks eras—that Ray Davies-ian venom stays the same, of course—and the charming/disarming “Too Lost In Love” makes feeling down sound like cheering up, just like <a href="spotify:artist:6LRmgzRManplPQghd2BMqz" data-name="The Clean">The Clean</a> did. -C. Ziegler