FUZZ – III
Like the idea of guitar guru Ty Segall hooking up with the unrefined recording talents of Steve Albini? Course you do, so direct your salivation immediately towards this overdue third instalment of Segall supergroup FUZZ. Five long years since he last set up alongside schoolyard buddies Charles Moothart and Chad Ubovich, phasers are again set to stun here, happily delivering another similar set of riff-heavy tunes, red-lining and squiggling guitar torture.
Really capturing that live sound, hard-rocking opener “Returning” duly pits angry garage fuzz against proto-metal bass bombs and doomy distortion, Segall’s thin vocal melodies stretched out to a smear, trademark Black Sabbath sludge whipped into peaks by whammy-bar frenzy. Led Zeppelin-grade rocker “Nothing People” is even better. “None of these people have enough to eat, but they aren’t worth a dime” Segall spits over a motorik base, a killer strut turning into a crunchy stomp, blown out cones, strangled frets and softer, catchy vocal parts rubbing shoulders with sweet soloing. It’s a smart and perfectly formed dose of raw power to rival unpolished pop gem “Rat Race” from the II LP.
Continuing the progressive blues blow-outs of that same album, “Time Collapse” later vents a little steam while the closer “End Returning” picks up the exciting American punk fury that “Red Flag” left burning from the same record. Elsewhere, Segall holds court over of a maelstrom assault of metallic guitar fuzz, happy to jam it out or contort into a deadly whirlwind of razor-sharp guitar as needed. Truth be told, III is probably the best and most consistent album in the FUZZ franchise, a concise rock album that still knows how to let the good times roll.
Best track: “Nothing People”
~III is released October 23rd via In The Red.~