Ty Segall Band : Slaughterhouse

Slaughterhouse is technically the first album by the ‘Ty Segall Band’, but Mr. Segall is actually an incredibly prolific artist, both on his lonesome & working with others. He’s been in a number of San Francisco area bands, and has also done split/collaboration records. In fact, this year he’s already put out Hair with White Fence (QRO photos), and has a solo record planned for this fall. Of course, his garage-rock, heavy on the distortion, is easy to make a lot of, if losing some quality in favor of quantity.

The longhaired (QRO photos) Segall has long trafficked in head-banging garage rock with Sonic Youth (QRO live review)-esque distortion, and fully goes for it on Slaughterhouse, most notably in ten-plus minute instrumental closer “Fuzz War”.  But he can also do your more ‘traditional’ garage-speed (“Slaughterhouse”, “Mary Ann”, “Tell Me What’s Inside Your Heart”), or even the sloppier shout-garage, such as “Muscle Man” and “Diddy Wah Diddy” (“Fuck this fuckin’ song!”).  And it’s all got that garage fuzz-distort.

Perhaps a better comparison for Ty Segall Band than Sonic Youth (an over-used one for pretty much any distortion-heavy rock band) is Guided By Voices (QRO album review), as Segall’s output is coming close to that of GBV’s ultra-prolific garage-rock icon Robert Pollard (QRO solo album review).