There’s an amazing video of Fuzz performing live in Los Angeles at Burgerama a few years back. In the video, the trio of garage rock royalty – Ty Segall, Charlie Moothart, and Chad Ubovich of Meat Bodies – are tearing through the Black Sabbath-sounding track, “Fuzz’s Fourth Dream,” all seriously seeming to have the time of their lives as they flash smiles back and forth. It’s one of those videos that make Segall’s brainchild, Fuzz, not only fun to watch, but incredibly compelling to hear sear through a set of songs.
Their new album II will be released October 23, but can currently be streamed in its entirety here via NPR. II is an onslaught of blistering proto-metal garage rock that is powerful but not brutal. Half aggressive drum fills via Segall, and half heavily distorted Hendrix-inspired guitar roars and thick bass, II further reveals the band’s amalgam of underlying influences including Blue Cheer, the Groundhogs and Sabbath.
Their sound is streamlined but not hostile, and is sprinkled with ear-catching flourishes and experimental nuances (samples and lo-fi candor that you would find on any Ty Segall album) that break down the sonic parameters expected of traditional heavy metal.
Living up to their name, Fuzz draws from heavy, caustic, fuzz pedal-worshiping and psychedelic acts of the past to heave forth an impressive 14-song double album made for headbanging and the cultivation of thick as cement darkness.
Naturally Moothart’s guitars do a lot of the heavy lifting, but Segall’s drums are given enough space to make each strum more concise, and his brief pauses lend an added punch to the exceptionally muddy choruses. It’s an album that wavers between blunt-force heaviness and a slightly trippier variant.
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Catch Fuzz at the Regent Theatre tomorrow October 20th, or at the Constellation Room on November 3rd. Come October 23, the record, put out by In the Red Records will be presented as a double LP, no doubt in part due to the closing title track’s 14-minute run time.