With a long musical career that stretches from the hardcore punk/emo band Lifetime to the short-lived Zero Zero (who were responsible for A.M. Gold, one of the great lost albums of the 2000s) and the dance-punk Miss TK & the Revenge, Ari Katz has made plenty of really good music. Mitylion is his first solo project and his first album under the name, Nite Flite, is the most relaxed, most melodic thing he's done. Minus the punk blast of Lifetime, the warped synth pop attack of Zero Zero, and the pounding beat of Miss TK, it turns out that Katz is damn good at writing laid-back, almost beachy indie pop. With simple, sneaky drums both real and programmed, minimal guitars, bubbling bass, and pulsing keyboards making up the core of the album's sound, Katz subtly plays with the arrangements, slyly dropping drums in and out, boosting the bass and adding small bursts of guitar played by friends like Miss TK's Jamie Goldfarb and Pete Steinkopf of the Bouncing Souls. There is a lot of dub reggae in the mix, a bit of Spoon's precision and way with a hook, and some power pop goodness on "My Yard Is On" (which sounds like it could have been on the soundtrack of an alternate, East Coast version of Fast Times at Ridgemont High), not to mention some really fine, dude-next-door vocals throughout by Katz. He started working on the album while Hurricane Irene battered his New Jersey home, then kept working until he had over 30 songs done. The process of whittling them down left him with a rock-solid ten songs, not a flabby riff or wasted move among them. In fact, a high percentage of them are the kind of songs that feel like you already know them, the kind that get you nodding along right away, or sliding into the stream of the melodies and words like it was a warm bath. The album is immediate in a casual way, friendly and welcoming from start to finish. Katz never tries too hard, but he hits everything right in the sweet spot. It's an impressive solo debut that promises many more low-key delights to come.