Mythical Motors revel in a certain guitar pop brevity – their work is lean and free of distractions, built around lo-fi melodies that cling to your subconscious. Drawing inspiration from bands such as Guided By Voices, Sebadoh and Big Star, Mythical Motors feel similarly in tune with pop’s curious ability to succinctly draw out intense emotion and communal experience in a very short period of time. And over the course of the last nine years, the band has shared over a dozen records filled with emotive short story narratives and opaque indie rock memories.
Fronted by Matt Addison, the band also features bassist Mike Brown, drummer Brad Smith and guitarist Johnny Wingo, a trio of musicians who share Addison’s affection and adoration of these fuzzed-up guitar theatrics. And though their influences are clearly celebrated in every memorable melody and jangly guitar tone, they never resort to rote imitation; the music is familiar but pockmarked by flashes of unique insight into what makes these sounds so resonant in the first place. Addison possesses a keen awareness of how to shape these rhythms in a way that maximizes their impact while keeping their gait brisk and freewheeling.
The band’s latest record, “Leviathan Messiah,” will be released on April 24 via Painted Blonde Tapes. Mastered by Todd Tobias, best known for his work with Guided By Voices, the album finds Addison playing all of the instruments and handling the production side of things. Across 14 tracks, he finds inspiration through bouts of muscular garage rock, early 90’s indie rock and brief acoustic asides. Ever beset by a constantly shifting creativity, these songs provide startling evidence of Addison’s melodic maturity in approaching the themes and emotions that guides the heart of “Leviathan Messiah”.
On new single “The Hidden Man”, Addison concocts an acoustic daydream, one where plucked strings and blurring keys entangle and foster a gorgeous landscape of languid movements and gauzy atmospheres. Stepping away from the driving indie rock of earlier releases, he fashions an intimate, almost voyeuristic, glimpse into the concealed world of this song. There exists an unexpected folk-pop clarity here, although the fidelity is still wonderfully ramshackle. At just over two minutes, it’s a brief but lovingly detailed study into the evolution of Mythical Motors’ sound.
