For the insanely prolific Ty Segall to wait two years between releases there needed to be chaos in the world and some other project which must have consumed his time. Of course, that was the case as the pandemic and building his new studio led to the break between albums, but now with zero fanfare comes Harmonizer. Sharing the same name as his recently created studio, the new album pulses with electric keyboards, distorted bass and tons of guitar riffs from heaven and hell as Segall continues to experiment with the sound to varying degrees of success.
Bringing in various members of The Freedom Band and working with co-producer Cooper Crain, Harmonizer possesses a futuristic tone while dabbling with a whole host of guitar/keyboard effects bordering on industrial rock for the first side of the album, before shifting gears on the second.
Opening with a brief disco/techno instrumental the record kicks into gear with the excellent “Whisper” as a bombing groove sets the pace around fuzzy guitar runs which slice through woofers before a twitching bass driven outro. The robotic pulsing, reverb with digital bleeps around feedback blasts, are everywhere on the record as the screeching guitar tones blare out during “Erased” while the ugly growling six strings and pretty singing on the title track recall early Nine Inch Nails.
Harmonizer shifts from that tone halfway through the glam rock spiced “Pictures” which starts off like a gangbuster only to switch halfway to a minimal stripped-down effort in odd fashion, resulting in two songs shoehorned into one to the detriment of both. The downer “Ride” drags as well, but the confident strutting riffs around the silly lyrics of “Play” picks up the pace.
The dabbling in Black Sabbath-like sludge metal (“Waxman”) and intriguing post-punk sung by his wife (“Feel Good”) prove that you can never pin down a style with Segall but he does return to the pulsing industrial light rock to wrap up Harmonizer during “Changing Contours”. Back in the saddle and now with his own studio, Segall is primed to continue churning out his unique spins on rock and roll.
