“When I died / I was alive,” sings Ty Segall on Chrome’s eponymous closing track. Sonically, Segall hasn’t sounded so vibrant in years, while lyrically, it’s the kind of message permeating with the spirit of Bowie and Bolan.
Unlike much of his output over the last decade (notwithstanding Black Paint, which offsets Segall’s earlier body of work with his later-era glam wanderings), on Chrome the singer / guitarist moves away from glam, edging closer to the aesthetic that made him a cult-like figure at the backend of the ’00s.
Around the release of last year’s Possession, Segall quickly pivoted, with the view of drafting in his go-to unit of regular guns for hire, Mikal Cronin, Emmett Kelly, Ben Boye and Evan Burrows. And it didn’t take long for them to weave what would become Chrome. A series of blistering garage rock numbers that sit somewhere between smashing into the bones and sizzling the senses.
Chrome isn’t garage rock in its rawest form, though. Like he’s done with glam, Segall backtracks to his key sources of inspiration: the ’70s. But not before some scuzzy, psych-infused shredding on opening cut, Hospital. A song centred on the fragile nature of life where, indeed, “We all fall”. Preceding that, with the line, “Try, the sky is on the floor / Safe restrain on the ceiling / There is no meaning”, again, it all feels very Bowie. The overall themes that underpin Chrome, passing off a vulnerability previously unheard from Segall.
It comes with age, and perhaps for Segall it’s a coming of age. The garage doom of Running to Nowhere, fitting for these times. The chorus, cushioned by a piano and a floaty melody that cuts through the darkness that, all told, sees Segall channelling his inner-Ozzy.
Ty Segall - ChromeSegall’s band mates pull him through to the present on Glass. Hard-rock with exciting shifts in tempo that feed into a new quiet / loud dynamic that will serve Segall well in the future. So too lyrically, where he cuts through to the bone. (“I wonder if you’ll run out of air / Would I leave you alone in there? … You’re never leaving me.”)
Play Cowboys really sees the band in the groove. In many ways, it’s Chrome’s centre-piece, simply through the ideas this unit brings to the table. It’s the moment where Segall and the band get expansive. The kind of jam mode from the same corners of a creative landscape that Cass McCombs has inhabited over the years.
Then there’s Everything You’ve Been. One of the best songs Segall has penned in years. All grit and guile, it’s scuzz rock screaming across the fault-lines, frying you all the way to the nerve endings. If it doesn’t seal the deal, then Let Go should. Again, hard-rock, but designed for summer. Segall, orchestrating a vibe where sinking beer in vacant car-parks after hours with the sound of Secret Treaties blaring from the car tape deck is the order of the day.
Again, as Segall sings “When I died / I was alive,” on Chrome’s final verse, it’s indicative of these times. It also underlines, not a revival in garage rock, but a reinvigoration for many of its modern-day practitioners. The Osees, releasing their best cut of the decade so far (Cara Maluco), while Segall’s old sparring partner in White Fence’s Tim Presley released the magical Orange earlier this year. The bar has been set high, and on Chrome, Segall reaches it with his best outing since Manipulator.
Chrome is out now via Drag City. Purchase from Bandcamp.
