{"id":9756,"date":"2016-01-12T05:30:59","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T05:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=9756"},"modified":"2015-12-08T15:34:07","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T15:34:07","slug":"album-review-ty-segall-ty-rex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2016\/01\/12\/album-review-ty-segall-ty-rex\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Ty Segall — Ty Rex"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ty_rex\"Modern-day garage rock hero Ty Segall<\/strong> has never been bashful about showing his roots. Listening to both his original material and his musical contributions to others’ work (most notably Mikal Cronin<\/strong><\/a>), it’s quite easy to connect the dots: there’s a clear progression from teenage 1960s garage rock groups to The Stooges<\/strong><\/a> to Lenny Kaye<\/strong>‘s Nuggets<\/i> compilation to ’70s glam to punk to grunge and then onto Segall’s music.<\/p>\n

And on Segall’s latest disc, the cleverly titled Ty Rex<\/i>, the multi-instrumentalist visits one of the way stations on that musical continuum. The music of T. Rex<\/strong> informed Segall’s sensibilities, so it makes sense that he’d enjoy a musical excursion back to those late ’60s and early-to-mid 1970s songs. Ty Rex<\/i> is compiled from Segall’s similarly-titled 2011 EP, a 2015 single, and one additional recording (\u201c20th<\/sup> Century Boy\u201d).<\/p>\n

Segall’s nine choices from the twelve-album T. Rex catalog provide ample clues as to what he finds appealing in Marc Bolan<\/strong>‘s music: there’s nothing from 1973’s Tanx<\/i> LP or any of T. Rex’s subsequent four albums. And Segall skips the 1968 debut with the hippy-dippy title (My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair… But Now They’re Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows<\/i>). Instead he focuses on T.Rex’s celebrated glam-rock period, exemplified by Electric Warrior<\/i> (1971) and 1972’s The Slider<\/i>, covering three tunes from that period.<\/p>\n

The biggest difference between these readings of T. Rex songs and Segall’s original material is the song length: while most of Segall’s compositions typically clock in safely under the two-minute mark (only occasionally pushing past three minutes), on Ty Rex<\/i>, he stretches out. The noisy \u201cElemental Child\u201d \u2013 originally on 1970’s A Beard of Stars<\/i> \u2013 extends well past the six-minute mark; that’s nearly a minute longer than the original.<\/p>\n

Overall, Segall’s selections are solid, digging deep into the T. Rex songbook and sidestepping the most obvious choices such as \u201cGet it On (Bang a Gong).\u201d \u201cCat Black\u201d \u2013 the closest Ty Rex<\/i> comes to a folkie\/acoustic sound (and it’s none too close at that) \u2013 points out the sonic similarities between Marc Bolan’s songwriting and that of David Bowie<\/strong><\/a> circa The Man Who Sold the World<\/i>. One potential misstep is the inclusion of the tail-chasing tune \u201cThe Motivator,\u201d which is little more than a lazy rewrite of \u201cGet it On (Bang a Gong).\u201d<\/p>\n