On his second album, the California-based garage rock musician Ty Segall puts together an album that serves less as a venture into new territory than as a comprehensive culmination of his music to this point, jumping genres at the drop of a hat.
I don’t know how Segall has time to sleep. He spends so much time recording and putting out album after album under the Ty Segall name and touring said music, in addition to his vast collection of side projects and bands. He is without a doubt among indie rock’s most prolific songwriters.
What’s more, he achieves this with remarkable consistency, covering a wide range of genres and styles from Sabbath-esque garage rock to tender folk to harsh, abrasive noise rock. He's something special, and has the incredible ability to churn out music regularly without letting the music’s overall quality suffer.
Segall follows up last year’s “Emotional Mugger”with a second self-titled record. Clocking in at 36 minutes (slightly shorter than “Mugger”), the album does not serve to expand or evolve Segall’s sound as much as it serves simply as a culmination of his previous work. It’s the sum of the musician’s parts, and a little bit more.
The most obvious difference between “Emotional Mugger” and this new self-titled album is the quality of the recording. “Mugger”prided itself in its filth and dirtiness, its heaviness and rock n’ roll shamelessness. Sure, this is what made it 2016’s greatest album, but “Ty Segall”shows us that a clearer artist is a more endearing one.
The guitar tones and snares are better defined, with production and recording duties being handled by none other than Steve Albini (!!!). Sometimes the high fidelity production is more of a curse than a blessing, occassionally leading “Ty Segall” to sound safer than it needs be, but it is a breath of fresh air after the stuffiness of “Mugger.”
Segall opens the album with “Break a Guitar,” a thick-riffed thrasher that calls back to “Emotional Mugger’s” own side-one-track-one, “Squealer,” even if it can’t quite match the pure, aggressive, punch-in-the-face energy the latter song possesses.
Then comes “Freedom”, a fun, fast-paced, brief burst of psychedelia, and its sequel, “Warm Hands (Freedom Returned),” an absolute behemoth of a track. “Warm Hands” may suffer due to its length, with a running time of just over 10 minutes, but it contains perhaps my favourite moment on the album: the sudden, one-off return of the chorus of “Freedom” about six minutes in. Every time I listen, I forget about this part, and every time I hear it, it is a very welcome surprise.
Another notable difference between “Emotional Mugger”and this new record is the diversity, both sonic and emotional. “Mugger” was fantastic, but if we’re talking eclecticism, it was pretty one-note; a ball of energy, but the same, unchanging, static kind of energy throughout.
On “Ty Segall,” the titular multi-instrumentalist is showcasing an almost entirely new band that boasts the talents of Mikal Cronin and Charles Moothart, seasoning his meal with spices found deeper in his musical cupboard. “Talkin’” is a warm slice of country a la Neil Young, and “Warm Hands” is a proggy, jam band-esque monster of a track, but “Thank You Mr. K” is the heaviest banger not featured on “Mugger.”
The album’s seventh track, “Orange Color Queen,” is undoubtedly its finest hour. It’s difficult to write love songs without sounding cheesy or disingenuous, but Segall pulls it off so well, crafting a sweet, beautiful dedication to his wife, Denée, with fantastic guitars at the song’s bridge that appear to harken back to “Ziggy Stardust.”
The album’s third act, containing “Orange Color Queen,” “Papers,” “Take Care” and an untitled 13-second recording, feels like a glammy ode to Marc Bolan, with lighter, more playful songs than those found earlier in the record and an overall more delicate atmosphere.
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Where “Ty Segall”suffers is its awkward flow and sometimes forgettable songwriting. “Emotional Mugger” was a great annihilator of an album, a wild ride from start to finish, but the pacing on its follow-up feels a little last-minute and compilation album-y.
I do sometimes find myself enjoying albums with irregular, jagged flow – I am among the few to believe that Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo” was among the best albums of 2016 – but the mood-jumping often fails here, and it lacks the charmingly inconsistent flow of records like “Pablo.” Segall’s songwriting just does not feel as urgent, nor as interesting, nor as fun as previous efforts.
But at the end of the day, it is a Ty Segall record, and the cons on those are nearly always outweighed by their pros. The album almost feels like a complementary dish to “Emotional Mugger.” Whereas “Mugger” had clear, sharp peaks, the self-titledwork spreads them out more evenly, making for a journey both exciting and introspective, a listen that compiles the things that made previous Segall ventures so good and knits them together into a neat, 36-minute package.
It does not cover new ground, but affirms Segall’s status as one of today’s greatest rock musicians. I cannot wait to see what else he has in store.
Conor Dennis is a contributor to Daily Lobo Music.
