Ty Segall & White Fence - Joy

Pitchfork 78

Ty Segall and Tim Presley lock into a psychedelic hive mind again for an exciting, wildly varied album made to be combed through and prodded.

The Guardian 60

(Drag City)

Six years ago, these two psychedelically inclined West Coast noise-makers collaborated on a previous album, the well received Hair. Since then, Freedom’s Goblin, released last January, has become a career high for Segall. White Fence’s Tim Presley – an ex-punk now into 60s melodicism who did time in the Fall before collaborating with Cate Le Bon – has a calling card in For the Recently Found Innocent (2014), his last White Fence album (produced by Segall).

All of which is to say, the appeal of these garage-rock polymaths may be more easily grasped elsewhere. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why Joy is merely fine, rather than genuinely exciting; to call it a little scattershot is to miss the point of both collaborators, whose tendency towards free-form wig-outs and abrupt sonic handbrake turns is central to their charm. There are highs here – not least A Nod, a pretty period gem about pleasing nobody, and the surprisingly riveting 30-second interlude Rock Flute, in which two rusty swinging gates gradually align. Overall, however, Joy fails to replicate the shock of the new and for all its effulgent harmonies, a certain gnarly swagger has been lost.