Album Review: Ty Segall + White Fence - Hair

San Francisco's Ty Segall and solo project White Fence (aka Tim Presley) have combined their eviscerating garage-punk talents and captured a labyrinth of lo-fi rock on their new eight-track record, Hair.

Their 2011 solo projects, Goodbye Bread (Segall) and Is Growing Faith (Presley), were both critically acclaimed, but their collaboration on Hair has resulted in an explosive, undulating release, with heavy lashings of '60s psychedelic riffs and relentless percussion that move rapidly through each electrifying cloud of noise.

Opener, Time, slips in and out of mellow guitar riffs with folk-rock leanings for the majority of the track, before accelerating into grinding guitars that sharply interrupt what was cohesion. Cohesiveness is in fact demonstrated several times across the record, particularly in Easy Ryder, which begins with comforting, lazy guitar licks and steady percussion, the stable drone of the duo's vocals melding well – until the track is textured by spectacular counter-riffs that battle against the established synchronicity. This continues as the borders of I Am Not A Game are defined in grooving rhythms, hollow reverb and simplistic vocals, until it escalates to a point of cataclysmic instability with the duo battling to make it to the final, banging flourish. Extravagant incongruity worms its way through Crybaby, The Black Glove/Rag and Scissor People, which all encompass the same restlessness and wonder.

Fusing their own methods of shredding speakers, the pair have created tracks that seem to grow and expand before collapsing in, or moving in a whole other direction. This unpredictability, along with their mesmerising talent, carries the album well, keeping you absorbed in the fuzzy, adrenalin-inducing rock that Segall and Presley have gotten tangled in – and all in less than 30 minutes.