Two of my most-anticipated albums of the summer were released just before Labor Day. Ty Segall once again travels back decades before he was born to borrow from the best psychedelic rock sounds, and the results are pretty good for his latest album, Manipulator.
In the category of impressive debut, I really like Annabel Dream Reader by U.K. band the Wytches. The band make an infectious cocktail of surf and garage (“surf doom” is one moniker Wytches gives itself). Some of the albums best songs, including Gravedweller, have been previously released but the album as a whole is worth a listen. It should definitely appeal to psych-garage fans.
Segall has been at this game a bit longer, producing a sizable catalog over the past half dozen years that draws on surf, psychedelia, stoner rock and power pop. Manipulator is a well polished album as Segall continues to perfect his song writing and production skills. There aren’t really any burners on Manipulator but there are plenty of good rock songs entrenched in that ’60s psychedelic sound. Fellow Bay-area group Thee Oh Sees put out a similar album, Drop, earlier this year and Segall also left his mark this summer on White Fence’s latest, For the Recently Found Innocent, an album he produced for his friend Tim Presley.
Manipulator doesn’t do much to change the Ty Segall story but the songs nicely complement his already-strong body of work.
All the Young Punks 