Tony Molina loves and appreciates a well-crafted song, and he’s one of the absolute best in the game at writing them. What he doesn’t love so much is being told he’s “maturing” as a musical artist. His last solo album had what could be described as a jangly, ’60s-ish sound, and some listener reactions threw him off a bit. “I kept hearing: ‘Oh, he’s maturing, he’s getting into other shit, writing more mature stuff,’” he says. “I thought, ‘Man, that’s kinda lame, no I’m not…’ Any time somebody expects something of me, I’m usually gonna do the opposite.”
“In the Fade”, Molina’s first under his own name in four years, did provide occasion to look back in time through his lengthy musical history while also blazing a new path forward. In early 2020, embarking on recording a new album, he started taking inventory in a way he hadn’t really done before, delving deep into his personal archives for songs that might fit alongside the new material he’d been writing and demoing.
Veteran Bay Area talent Tony Molina writes some of the best under two-minute song bursts you will hear on the indie scene. His solo work has always been top notch and showcased varied styles of lo-fi, electric rockers and fragile acoustic arrangements. Previously his style stayed in the same lane on his earlier releases but here on “In The Fade”, Molina mixes it up so that the electric meets the acoustic and the rock meets the ballad for a fantastic 19 minutes of music. Everything on “In The Fade” feels in place yet carefree as Molina sounds like an artist enjoying playing the music with his friends.
“In The Fade” just shows that you can not judge Tony Molina by one track or one album as this record perfectly conjoins all of his talents!.
Released August 12th, 2022
All songs written by Tony Molina except track 14 (Black Sabbath)
The Fat Angel Sings 