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Fuzz

II

Written by: BV on 26/10/2015 19:39:55

If you haven’t yet come across Ty Segall or one the bands associated with him in one way or another, I’d wager you’re missing out. With that said, there has been scarily quiet around him for some time now, considering that he often releases several albums a year, spread out across a multitude of different projects. Luckily, however, the silence has been broken – effectively, I might add, as the trio in which Ty Segall plays drums and handles vocals, Fuzz, has unleashed their second album upon an unsuspecting world. The trio, made up of Charles Moothart (guitar/vocals), Ty Segall (drums/vocals) and Chad Ubovich (bass), has seemingly been digging through crates of Black Sabbath LP’s, rummaged for Blue Cheer obscurities and apparently just absorbed anything vaguely related to the vaguely defined “proto metal” realm of music. The end result is a far more focused record than their self-titled debut.

Opening with the lengthily titled “Time Collapse II / The 7th Terror” Fuzz set out to prove that they’re not fucking around and that riffs are serious business, as Moothart rips out some of his best work to date throughout these shrouded but immensely focused 7 minutes of sheer rock n’ roll dystopia. The outlook from the album is generally a pretty grim one, vocally speaking. With tracks like “Let it Live” Fuzz venture into a sort of sonic territory that is pretty hard to define, yet lies somewhere in the borderland of Blue Cheer and The Beatles jamming in a damp basement, covering Black Sabbath – to great success, as lines like; ”Watching all the people walking / I wonder if they feel alone? / See their feet touch the emptiness / I can’t hear it at all thunder through this slow-burner of a track.

The production has seemingly taken a turn towards a more focused output as well, as Moothart’s guitar has been pushed way up front, while Segall’s maniacal vocals have been reduced to a scary-sounding wallpaper in the soundscape – signifying just how damn important the riffs are for Fuzz. With “Bringer of Light” Fuzz venture off into a setting that is not entirely as heavy as other efforts on the track, yet slightly groovier in some passages. The lyrics are fairly self-explanatory – that is, if you can actually decipher them through the dense soundscape and the eerily mixed vocal effects. Along with “Let it Live”, “Bringer of Light” and the fast-paced fuzz-grinder of “Pipe” are the ultimate highlights of an album that is actually too much to sit through repeated times. There’s simply an abundance of great material on this album that there is simply far too much to take in – leaving one actually wanting a smaller, more concentrated dose.

This is particular obvious when presented with otherwise great, but ultimately far too long tracks like the title track which could easily have been half of a rather satisfactory EP in its own right. Ultimately, it seems a luxury to complain about having a bit too much of the good stuff present on an album, but it does make for a rather intimidating listen when it reaches more than an hour’s worth in total runtime. I’ve got to hand it to Fuzz, though – I really didn’t think they could return in even greater shape than what they showcased on their debut. Guess I was wrong.

Download: Bringer of Light, Pollinate, Let it Live, Time Collapse II / The 7th Terror
For the fans of: Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer, Witch
Listen: Facebook

Release date 23.10.2015
In The Red