Fuzz (Ty Segall and Charles Mootheart) - This Time I Got A Reason / Fuzz's Fourth Dream

Will someone tell me why the fuck we’re still enabling Ty Segall? The man makes lowest common denominator garage rock and nothing else, cover features and think pieces will never change that. Supposedly Fuzz were intended to be an anonymous project, with Segall and whoever else is responsible for this shit keeping their identities under wraps. Artists who choose to keep schtum about who they are often are the ones who make music that’s attempting to be modern or forward thinking, but remaining anonymous while making shitty rock music for people who like their nostalgia delivered by smug asshats who have an understanding that what they’re doing isn't some reverential homage to the guitar-shredders and pissed-off small-town dreamers who made garage rock into an escapist art form isn't a knowing nod to the facelessness of that bygone era, it’s a misguided attempt at making some of the least interesting music to ever surface a sheen of respectability.

In a feature on Segall in the Guardian’s G2 magazine, the writer of the piece stated that the live show he had just witnessed was the kind of gig that made kids go home and start up a band, and I don’t know if it’s the thought of an artist this witless holding that kind of power or the thought of an army or moronic garage rock bands being allowed a sheen of legitimacy is a more terrifying prospect. Even though Segall and his myriad recording projects all succeed from appealing to people’s nostalgia, he represents a very modern concept: he is the human embodiment of the culture of constant content. He churns out this muck and people keep on listening, not because it offers anything of value, but because people can’t resist constant newness.

Ned Powley

Ty Segall Band - Slaughterhouse

 What do you have in your garage? Boxes of old music magazines, nuts and bolts from old bikes and an overwhelming smell of petrol if you’re anything like me. What prolific American rocker Ty Segall has in his garage is at least half a dozen albums of squally rock n’ roll.

Opener ‘Death’ sets the scene on what is intended to be the heaviest of three albums released by the singer/guitarist under various guises this year. Similar to The Vines at their most abrasive, it feels a lot more authentically DIY than wannabes like The Vaccines with vocals low in the mix, shouty choruses, tub-thumping drums and thrashed power chords.

The title track is 1.31 of tortured vocals and raging riffage that could have come straight off Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’ while ‘Tell Me What’s Inside Your Heart’ finally tacks a substantial melody over the riotous backing, with the power chords finally giving way to some surfy ‘whoo-ooh’s and a squalling whirlpool of a guitar solo. The militaristic flourishes at the end of ‘Wave Goodbye’ lead into a guitar blow-up that leaves amps shrieking with feedback and Segall sweating and quivering. You can almost sense the band bashing it out in their garage and indulging their fantasies of playing to legions of adoring fans.

‘Muscle Man’ owes a debt to the Pixies, with a particularly sweet vocal reminiscent of Kim Deal and harsh loud-louder dynamics. Some tracks like ‘That’s the Bag I’m In’ just feel like rants and Segall’s voice is thin and reedy but as almost all the tracks could be first takes you’re inclined to forgive a few rough edges. ‘Diddy Wah Diddy’ opens with the mastermind directing his trio of cohorts to play faster and louder than ever before whilst final track ‘Fuzz War’ is an epic Hawkwind-esque noise-rock meltdown that lasts almost three times as long as any other track.

At first I was rather unsure about ‘Slaughterhouse’s DIY punk revival but after a few listens it becomes clear that Segall is not just a chancer aping his idols (Iggy Pop, The Replacements) but a songwriter playing with the same freedom and love of noise, melody and self-expression that his heroes did all those years before. Get in the garage and crank it up.

7.7

Max Sefton