SEGALL, TY - Melted - Vinyl

Someone must have dropped some acid into Ty Segall's lo-fi garage rock beverage, since his third solo effort, Melted, sounds noticeably noisier, trippier, and more damaged than his previous efforts. Segall's feel for a simple, sturdy melody hasn't escaped him, but the tunes often drift in and out of clouds of sound effects, percussive jams, guitar feedback, or keyboard drones, and a warm layer of pushed-to-the-red distortion surrounds most of the drums and instrumental tracks. The result isn't quite face-melting, but it certainly hits harder and with more lysergic force than Segall's first two post-Epsilons efforts, though that's not to say the man has lost touch with his sense of dynamics; "Bees" is a midtempo number that generates a quiet intensity around Segall's slurred vocal, and "Caesar" is an engagingly hooky pop song delivered with a commendable swagger. But righteous freak-outs like "Girlfriend," "My Sunshine," and "Mike D.'s Coke" set the tone for this album, and for the most