The C.I.A. is yet another project on Ty Segall’s increasingly crowded calendar. In fact, ‘S/T’ will be the sixth release this year to have the Californian’s name included on the credits. Released on In the Red Records, for this recording, the super-prolific multi-instrumentalist has enlisted the services of partner Denee Segall, who’s clearly in backs to the wall survival mode on each of the double handful of short, sharp, furious tracks.
Mixing nihilistic industrial, cartoon electronica and lo-fi hardcore punk, ‘S/T’ comes across like a turbocharged Spacemen 3 meets Bow Wow Wow, underpinned by downmarket 1980s drum machine, Kilminster-esque bass, distorted psychobilly guitar, replete with Denee’s apocalyptic vocals on tracks appropriately named ‘Fear’, ‘Oblivion’, ‘Gunslinger’ and’ ‘SOS’. Not surprisingly, the latter of the aforementioned quartet isn’t a version of the song first penned by Anderson and Ulvaeus.
With most songs lasting well short of three minutes and the shortest clocking in at a mere 64 seconds, the only extended track is arguably the album’s centrepiece, the admonitory ‘Power’. Seemingly a doom-laded waltz with the devil containing a riff nodding in no small part to Iommi, ironically the message contained within implies ‘power through peace’.
It’s actually the brevity of ‘S/T’ that adds to its allure, any longer and the relentless amphetamine fuelled lawlessness may start to grate. At just over twenty-two minutes, were talking proper smash and grab, perfect for those insane twenty-five minute live performances in which the venue in question is torn a new arsehole.
Oblivion is released December 21st on In The Red Records.