Ty Segall: Slaughterhouse

Buy the album here  Slaughterhouse

I remember the first time I heard Fun-House by The Stooges. That album blew me away. It is chaos, pure and full. I have never heard an album just as crazy and chaotic as Fun-House, even from my favorite band of all time, Nirvana.

Then, one day, there comes along Ty Segall, a man akin to Jay Reatard in the fact that both were punk prodigies. Yet, whereas Reatard was concerned with mortality, Ty was an absurdest.

Needless to say, I loved everything Ty had released up to this point and, when the album came out I loved it too. In fact, I remember hearing that this album was sort of a spiritual successor to Fun-House.

Now, any fan of punk music will tell you that that is a big claim and, in many ways, I agree. This album contains an energy all its own. It is messy, sloppy, noisey, and angry.

When you listen to this album all you want to do is fuck on the floor and break shit.

With tracks like "Diddy Wah Diddy" coming in with a monstrous riff just to turn into a fucking pile-up, well, what else can you do. Or the short re-recording of "Oh Mary," to get you moving and jumping.

However, all that being said, there is an element lacking to Slaughterhouse. When I heard Fun-House I felt like I was stepping into a world. A crazy, colorful, disjointed world not unlike the kind I think of when I listen to Lightning Bolt.

Slaughterhouse, on the other hand, does not have that. It doesn't feel as cohesive to me. Whereas I felt that every song on Fun-House served some greater purpose, Slaughterhouse is just a collection of great rock tunes.

That is not to say that Ty does not deal with themes. In the world of Ty Segall there is a theme of displacement, of being someone else. Yet, while this may sound terrifying, here on Slaughterhouse he plays around with the surreal, wearing his John Lennon influence on his sleeve.

On "The Tongue," I get the sense of Ty saying that his words are there to be given to anyone that will listen and, when that song breaks down, it is heavy as a Sabbath tune.

Overall, Slaughterhouse feels medieval. It feels torturous and heavy, as if it is trying to equate the day to day of the modern world to some sort of laborious slavery. But regardless of themes, if you are going on a road trip or just want to rock out, this is something you need to own.