By Lino Fernandez
The prolific 30-year old Ty Segall releases his tenth studio album Freedom’s Goblin via Drag City. It’s a whopping 19-song opus, that’s two LPs if you buy it on vinyl. While recorded at five different studios and engineered by a few big names in the business, Steve Albini, F. Bermudez, Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell and Ty Segall himself, the record still maintains cohesive both sonically and thematically. Freedom, life on the road, all while thinking about the ones you love. With the amount of touring Segall does, it’s rare for an artist to continue to put out such quality material. And a double album is an ambitious undertaking for anyone nowadays with bands tending to release singles to try and stay fresh and relevant.
The opening track “Fanny Dog” comes in full force with horns, keys, crunchy guitar, and walking riffs. The album contains quite a few departures for Segall such as the electro-funk of “Despoiler of Cadaver” and the ‘60s pop-tinged “Cry Cry Cry”. There is still a good amount of fuzz to hold the attention of long-time fans like the stomp-rock of “Shoot You Up” and the ‘70s hard-rocker “She”. I can imagine the primarily acoustic songs “My Lady’s On Fire” and “Free” were written on the road in a cheap hotel late a night while the rest of the band lay nearby trying to catch some z’s. The Crazy Horse-esque “And Goodnight” concludes the album clocking in at over 12 minutes wrought with dueling guitar solos.
Freedom’s Goblin is a solid release with no filler. You can put this album on at a party and it will play like a DJ set from someone’s vintage vinyl collection. Catch Ty Segall with some familiar faces in the Freedom Band backing him on tour. So far, dates across the U.S. have been booked through the end of April.
For more info check out ty-segall.com or dragcity.com
