Just when you thought you knew everything about the modern renaissance man Ty Segall, he released a new album. Segall’s imaginative world of psychedelic garage rock seems to make a hyperbolized impression of itself on Three Bells, the monstrous new LP. Imagine walking into a carnival on another planet, colors unrecognizable to the human eye dancing like LED lights in a blurry photo as Segall plays contortionist with his vocals for his most ambitious and satisfying album to date. Once you hit play, you have fully entered the world of Three Bells so make sure you are comfortable and prepare to be amazed by the sonic wizardry of Ty Segall.
Coming off of his folk-inspired “Hello, Hi” LP, Segall takes a back seat lyrically on Three Bells. The vulnerability of the acoustics seemed to have allowed Segall to get everything off of his chest; now, it is his musicianship that is driving his latest. The sonic twists and turns of this LP evoke the nostalgia of psychedelic rock’s pinnacle while the artist injects Segall-isms into tropes from the genre’s past. The album runs for over an hour and even that doesn’t feel like enough time. Upon pressing play you are thrown into a tornado of difficult guitar chords and otherworldly melodic phrasing with nothing to save you from the fierce winds of Segall but the man himself.
To put it bluntly, this is a weird album. Weird is good though and in this case, it is not just good but a stunning display of an expert musician who has honed their craft to a point where it is almost unrecognizable to his earlier work. While this album is more of a return to form after his previous few albums, Segall finds new ways to take his cartoonish talents to the next level. A single like “Void” puts his understanding of the guitar to the text, creating hypnotic chord progressions that seemingly melt over the song’s nearly seven-minute runtime. Three Bells isn’t just a masterclass in Segall’s musicianship and how over the top it can become, there are some moments of pure rock bliss.
A song like “Wait” carries the attitude of early punk while the guitar tones help it fit into the tracklist nicely. The way Segall transitions from alien-like talent to breaking the complexity of his playing down to its simplest form gives the whole tracklist a lovely dynamic. “Wait” is quickly followed by the quirky pop of “Denee”, a song that also features some noteworthy drum pockets. Hearing “Wait” transition into “Denee” feels like stretching out your back after sleeping on a couch. Three Bells is filled with moments of relief like this, creating a mesmerizing listening experience that transports you to the peak of psych-rock and flips the concept of the genre on its head.
For those of you who have dabbled in the world of psychedelics, Three Bells is akin to a bumpy trip filled with foreign figures that parade like groovy ghosts around the room. For the people who may not have had a college experience the rest of us had, don’t let this sentiment scare you. Ty Segall is your shaman throughout Three Bells, his vocals float above these unpredictably dense arrangements and act as a guiding hand through the complex rhythms and contradicting melodies. Segall was able to create an album that leans into his loftiest ideas while still making it sound human and present, a relaxed listening session lined with moments of explosive guitar and syncopated arrangements. You don’t need to be a Ty Segall fan to appreciate the magic of Three Bells, the artist has transcended any persona attached to him to pen some of his best music to date.
