Rolling Stone
Twenty-two-year-old Michael Benjamin Lerner, who got his teenage kicks playing drums in Seattle bands like Toy Guns before writing and recording his own tracks under the name Telekinesis about three years ago. A stint opening for Death Cab For Cutie caught the ear of that band’s guitarist Chris Walla, who agreed to handle production for Telekinesis’ eponymous debut on Merge Records. With fuzzed-out guitars, hyperactive rhythms and sun-kissed vocals masking a serious melancholic streak, Telekinesis is classic ’70s-style power-pop, as played by a child of modern indie-rock. Infectious tracks like “Look to the East” and “Awkward Kisser” owe as much to Sloan and Teenage Fanclub as they do Big Star and The Raspberries.