#370 Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread

I heard about this one somehow, not especially strongly recommended, but I liked Melted.

That album was "punk rock" thanks to its huge, punishingly distorted guitar sound and seething rage. Here, the guitars are small, the rage repressed or released, punk rock only in a disinterested, post-punk kind of way. It's like the transition from Raw Power to The Idiot, stretched out, stretched thin, stoned, disinterested, leaning and lurking with halfhearted menace. Where's the shredding climax of Sad Fuzz? The double-time, piano-pinged, screamy climax of Caesar? Here, the music is confrontational in its unwillingness to do anything it doesn't want to - it establishes a groove, a vocal line, and you're going to sit there and like it, because the band can't be bothered to drag themselves out of it.

On one hand, maybe that's a great art gesture; there's something Velvet Underground about it. In some sense, this is the obvious followup to Melted. But in practical, listening terms, it comes across as lazy b-siderey; most of these sound like the 9th track on a 90's alternative album. Look, I have plenty of other options these days, and while I don't mind confrontation and challenge, I'm not going to do all the heavy lifting on the performer-listener collaboration. This is a disappointingly limp followup to last year's incendiary slash of rock 2/5

You might like this if: You want some stripped down, wasted, slow, vaguely Velvetsey rock, with a couple good solos, but don't otherwise need many surprises.