I am a little embarrassed to admit that before this review, I had never heard of Ty Segall. I wasn’t yet aware of his witty genre blending, or why the YouTube comments on his songs are full of references to bacon.
Ty Segall’s newest self titled project, Ty Segall (not to be confused with his other self-titled album from 2008) is a half-hour long creative romp through his musical abilities. While not every song is engaging, overall it’s a satisfying mosaic of Segall’s musical prowess. As a first-time listener, this was something that attracted me to this album and further cultivated interest in his other projects.
Things start off with “Break A Guitar” a song that could easily set the score of a low budget indie movie. This track’s low energy makes it boring, no wonder I see it being playing in the background of an opening credits sequence. It has a great guitar solo towards the end, a common theme in Segall’s music, but the song overall feels like it was churned out in his sleep, or maybe after just waking up from a long night of coffee, looking out over a city skyline alone and brooding (I’ve been watching too many coming-of-age teen movies).
The second track “Freedom” sounds exactly like it’s from the fictional band Sex Bob-omb from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. The song picks up the album’s energy, throwing down quick tempo drum fills, aggressive acoustic guitar and oh-so-fuzzy bass for a satisfying listen.
Then from out of left field comes the ten-minute long epic “Warm Hands (Freedom returned)” which blows my fucking mind, to put it lightly. I had a feeling the album would be decent after the first two songs, then out comes this amazing piece of songwriting. It sets up its garage rock base and stacks all sorts of genres on top of it from grunge to doom metal to 1970s-esque prog. If I had only been vaguely aware of Segall until this point in the album, he now had my full unwavering attention. Kind of odd to have a song of this caliber introduce itself as the third track as opposed to the last, but I appreciate the surprise.
It’s hard to follow up on a great song like that, but the remaining songs fill the rest of the short run time with creative jams and even ballads. “The Other One” is a heavy-hitting sludgy song with multiple, simultaneous guitar solos. The guitars work off of each other, both in harmony and dissonance, making listening an absolute joy. The song shouldn’t work, but somehow all the pieces come together.
Similarly, the song “Thank you Mr. K” starts as a fast, punk-y song that is all fun and games until about halfway through, when the song stops and a sample of someone smashing a toilet plays. At this point, the entire band seems to dive face-first into a mound of cocaine and the song hits even harder and faster, turning into an intense slugfest of screaming, guitar squeals and feedback that gives an incredible energy that finished up the song.
Rounding out the album are some decent slower tracks, but “Orange Color Queen” stands out as an excellent love song for his girlfriend. An ode dedicated to how she makes him feel less afraid when flying. The line “oh, you’re a tree on an airplane” preceded by other fun comparisons is a bit cheesy, but it’s something that I still found adorable, especially as it’s backed up by emotional and passionate music.
Not every track here will grab you, as I even found a few to be dull, but the ones that do really pull you in. And if this album really is a good sampler of Segall’s work, I can’t wait to gorge myself on a full course of his other music.
Final Verdict: 8/10
Best Tracks : “Warm Hands (Freedom returned)”, “Orange Color Queen”, “Thank you Mr. K”
Contact CU Independent Arts Writer Austin Willeke at austin.willeke@colorado.edu.
