Ty Segall, an up-and-coming garage rocker who has been prolifically recording over the last eight years, will make an appearance at the High Noon Saloon on Wednesday, May 9 (tickets here). His new album Goodbye Bread came out in the summer of 2011 and won critical acclaim for its inventive, laid-back style.
Segall’s sardonically spat vocals cut through Goodbye Bread’s hazy production like razors through a pillow. As world-weary as the hound whose skin droops all over the cover, Segall even lists off everything he’s sick of in “I Am With You,” but his is a sun-drenched cynicism. More than anything, this record, a sarcastically Californian collage of matter-of-fact melodies and jokey, wavering tempos, aims for fun. The title track echoes another fun-loving, sarcastic California band—the enigmatic Pavement, whose nonsensical lyrics, scuzzy-yet-proficient guitar solos and mostly on-tempo drums Segall seems to channel here. The record itself, though, is a feat of casual originality.
Segall’s infectious, scratchy pop songs together create a varied and highly stylized album, whose overlying feature is the way Segall clearly throws himself into every song. Despite his slurred lyrics and the messiness of the instruments throughout the record, no corners have been cut here. The lo-fi production value and Segall’s reputation as a garage rocker shouldn’t fool you: the rhythmic complexity and deliberate, interesting chord progressions that he presents here help the record transcend the label of garage rock.
“The Floor” perfectly exemplifies this. Its instrumental chorus and opener is an erratic, bluesy battle between loud and soft, yet the meat of the song is more of a down-tempo stomp over which Segall sings in a fatigued drawl, until the two sides meet. Segall is tethered neither to form nor tempo. He shares vocal space with his own guitar, which plays as important—if not more important–a role in the melody of the songs on Goodbye Bread.
His show promises to be a noisy, triumphant, stomping, energetic display of garage rock. Let the walls of the High Noon Saloon shake.
–Will Vander Ark
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Filed under: Indie, Music Shows This Week in Madison, Rock | Tagged: Goodbye Bread, High Noon Saloon, indie rock in Madison, Madison WI concerts, madison wi music, Ty Segall |
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