When Tony Molina released “Confront The Truth” in 2016 it had been three long years since his previous record (the now-classic album “Dissed And Dismissed”) and anticipation was intense.

Tony’s crunchy Teenage Fanclub-meets-Replacements power-pop was in- formed sonically and spiritually by his beloved SF South Bay area DIY punk scene, but “Confront The Truth” confounded the desire for more of the same by spotlighting Tony’s formidable songwriting with spare, mostly acoustic ar- rangements that hearken back to the circa 1967 psychedelic folk-pop of early Bee Gees, The Move, The Beatles and Tomorrow.

Out-of-print for several years, we’re happy to bring this record back on vinyl now, and this time as a 12” rather than 7” to give these beautiful, delicate songs more room to breathe. Truly the kind of aural tonic we all need right now.

In the interest of brevity, Tony Molina speaks a plain truth rarely considered by modern musicians. He’s not going to waste your time pontificating on sentimentality when he knows the very sentiments that power his music will stay with you long after the songs end. The West Bay guitarist’s background in hardcore, metal, and punk lends itself to this concept.

Iimagine if ‘Crossed Out’ or ‘No Le$$’ were on some Lennon-McCartney or George Harrison or early Bee Gees stuff, inventing a mode of sincere, world-beating pop expression and concentrating it into a span of seconds. That’s what’s happening here — a resourcefulness that is typically at odds with the kind of guitar mastery you’ll hear within. The eight offerings on ‘Confront the Truth’ notch a significant advancement in his style and approach. Almost completely absent from these new songs are the overloaded guitar crunch of ‘Dissed and Dismissed’, or his earlier work with ‘Ovens’. It’s replaced by gentle acoustic balladry, tasteful Mellotron and piano backing, the kind of musicianship that often takes a lifetime to master. The sadness of this music has precedents in pop’s past.

Tony’s revelatory turn into specific traditions of pop music speak directly to the reasons why we love music in general, and what keeps our finest players driven to create. The repertoire from which he draws may be narrow, but in these songs, you hear exactly what Tony found in those influences that shaped his experience.

Previous release ‘’Dissed and Dismissed’ [2014] scored 12/12 Drowned In Sound “the best album that Rivers Cuomo never made”, 4/5 Stereoboard