Album Review: Dissed and Dismissed by Tony Molina

If you're the kind of person who thinks that Guided by Voices songs from the early '90s were too long, or that Teenage Fanclub fannied around too much with things like bridges and dynamics, or that Weezer spends too much time these days on cruise ships, then Tony Molina knows exactly what you are looking for. His debut album, Dissed and Dismissed, runs through 12 songs in 12 minutes, with each one a perfectly formed nugget of loud guitar pop that is sure to put an incredulous grin on your face. Some of the songs have a verse, then a chorus, then a guitar solo.

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Head here to submit your own review of this album. They say that less is more, and in Tony Molina's case, this is a mantra that he evidently holds close to his heart. With Dissed and Dismissed he strips away anything deemed unnecessary, and instead focuses all his attention on the 12 minutes that make up the entirety of this album. Yes.

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If you just so happened to miss the debut album by Bay Area punk vet Tony Molina last year, don't stress. Dissed and Dismissed was only released on a run of 500 vinyl copies, and only really survived thanks to Molina's Bandcamp page. But word spread enough that Matador commissioned an EP for their singles club (the Six Tracks EP) and Slumberland not only agreed to reissue the album, but also offered to release its follow-up.Having cut his teeth on the Bay Area hardcore scene, Tony Molina is used to keeping songs tight and terse.

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“Please note that this album runs just under 12 minutes,” the promo page for Tony Molina’s 12-song Dissed and Dismissed warns. “Just so you know.” It’s a worthwhile heads up: Hearing a Tony Molina song for the first time can be a bit disorienting. We’re used to the kind of power-pop he makes abiding by certain rules and forms—three chords, three minutes, a chorus that repeats enough times for first-time listeners to be singing along by the end—but the songs on Dissed and Dismissed slyly toy with expectations.

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Pop music, if and when it works as representational art, is reflective. It seeks to find emotion and meaning in moments, in memories, in scenes imagined. It takes detail and story and perspective and stretches them to create metaphor, to create connection with an audience, to say something about experience. Last year, Tony Molina released Dissed and Dismissed, an album that calls all of those pop expectations into question.

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You know when celebrities get interviewed about their deep love of a book or album or other piece of media? Often, they'll demonstrate the depth of that love by saying that they've bought multiple copies (which they can easily afford) over the years to give to friends, thereby spreading the gospel. Sadly, for superstars and plebs alike, the sincerity of a gesture like this doesn't mitigate the annoyance of someone trying to impose their taste on you. I'm sure a lot of us can relate, though – or, at the very least, have a band/artist/whatever who you want to thrust rudely into individuals' faces and bark, "YOU WOULD LIKE THE FUCK OUT OF THIS.

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Tony Molina — Dissed and Dismissed (Slumberland)Blink and you’ll miss it. That was what happened to the first version of Dissed and Dismissed, out for about 10 minutes last year on the Bay Area Melters label. It’s also what happens when you leave this feedback-blistering slice of power pop on the stereo for even the slightest amount of time — to get a glass of water out of the refrigerator or to check on whether the mail’s arrived.

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Bay Area hardcore veteran (well, since 2002 anyway and he’s only 28 if that qualifies you as a vet) Tony Molina, frontman for Caged Animal and formerly the creative heart of power-pop act Ovens, has released/reissued his debut solo album, Dissed and Dismissed on Slumberland Records. It’s got twelve songs and last around twelve minutes. It’s really good.

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